









































































































































































































Class_P 2 _ 

Book_JL242JL 

Copyright N°_. H ^ _ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 

4 *T?- 1 








































MICHAEL’S WIFE 


By Alice DeFord 


SINGING RIVER 
Michael’s wife 


Michael’s Wife 


BY 

ALICE DeFORD 

»i 



Boston 

LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY 

x 934 


!S>45 S>45 















!p7 

{ / *? 





% 


/ 


Copyright, 1934, 
By Alice DeFord 


All rights reserved—no part of this book may be 
reproduced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer 
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection 
with a review written for inclusion in magazine 


or newspaper. 


All rights reserved 

Published, October 19, 1934 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 




75901 


SEP 2 6 1934 




MICHAEL’S WIFE 






Chapter One 


i 

S NOW was falling. Gently, almost wistfully. It 
whispered in the dry leaves of the oak trees, and 
drifted down to lie as lightly as the breast feathers 
of a swan upon the branches of the hemlocks beyond the 
river. It traced carefully the twisting field paths to the 
farms, and blanketed the big haycocks. It covered the 
long slopes of the roofs on the little houses of the old 
town, and caught on the weathercock of the white church 
beside the green. Silently, stilly, it fell, muffling the creak 
of farm wagons and the horns of cars, hushing the voices 
of children as they laughed and jostled and rolled each 
other on their way home from school. 

The clock on the church was striking the hour: four 
deliberate strokes. The church door opened and two peo¬ 
ple came out. A man and a woman. A big man with 
his hat in his hand, regardless of the snowflakes that 
lighted on his brindled head and weather-beaten face; and 


3 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


4 

a woman in black, a gleam of burnished hair showing be¬ 
neath her small black hat, steady eyes looking straight 
ahead. 

On the top step the man turned with a sudden smile, 
brilliant, engaging: “Well, Julie,—we’ve done it,” he said. 
Then, looking down more soberly into the face lifted to 
his, “My dear, I’ll try to make you happy.” 

“Yes, Michael, I know you will,” came the quiet words. 
A smile touched her thin face with swift, breath-taking 
beauty: “You’re catching a good bit of snow on your hair, 
Mike,” she said. 

He laughed: “I like the snow on my hair,” he told her. 

Upon that he thrust an arm through hers in a brotherly 
fashion, and together they went on down the steps to the 
car that waited. Slowly they started along the elm- 
bordered street that led into the town. In silence they 
skirted one side of the square, and turning into the road 
that crossed the end, passed an old red house that had 
once been a tavern, and made for the open country. 

For the first time, then, Michael Cochrane sent a look 
at the girl sitting so still beside him. His eyes caught 
the warm glint of her hair beneath the brim of her hat; 
took in swiftly the line of her cheek and pointed chin 
against the fur of her collar, the dark sweep of her lashes, 
the little, withdrawn, half-secret smile. She was looking 
straight before her, as though not conscious of him. “I 
wonder—” he thought quickly, and then must turn to 
the business of getting the car past a string of three blue 
log-sledges pulled by plodding horses along the very 
middle of the road. 

The girl had felt that brief look. She felt helplessly 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5 

each smallest look of the man beside her. —Julie Byrd 
until a few short minutes ago; for better, for worse, she 
was now Julie Cochrane. 

With curious vividness she seemed to hear again Michael’s 
words to her as they had stood, on that cheerless November 
afternoon, in the old firelit room of the house that had 
been her father’s: ‘Why don’t you marry me, Julie?” 
She felt again a flame run through her. He had spoken 
quietly then, his deep-set Cochrane eyes, half grave, a 
little whimsical, looking into hers: “We don’t love each 
other, of course; but we’ve known each other and liked 
each other for years. —I like you enormously. I think we 
could make a go of it. —You love Windyhill. You could 
have all of it. —We don’t need to live together,” he had 
gone on with simple frankness. “There’s loads of room 
in the old house.” He had put a friendly hand upon her 
shoulder, “How about it, Julie?” 

And she—why had she done it? How could she have? 
Just because she loved him, she should have said a kindly 
no, putting him gently off, sparing him the fulfillment 
of that generous gesture. For that was all it was. 

He was now, in the eyes of the law, her husband; but, 
in the eyes of love—nothing! God help her to go through 
with it and not hurt things for big Michael Cochrane. 
. . . He was saying something now in his genial, offhand 
way. She pulled herself together and turned to face 
him. 

A thrill of pleasure for the charm of her went through 
Michael. Foolish of him, but he really was glad that 
Julie was coming to Windyhill for good. He did like 
her tremendously. . . . “Wonder what old Toby will 


6 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


say?” came the brief, amused thought, and was gone. 

“Of course, Julie,” he went on, “just now, while you are 
in mourning for your father, you naturally wouldn’t have 
wanted to go on any kind of honeymoon. And besides,” 
he gave her a sudden smile that was naively humorous, 
“you don’t want that sort of thing with me, anyway.” 

“No, Michael,” she answered. Then, as though that 
were quite settled, and satisfactorily, simply going on to 
something else: “Do you ever hear from Toby? Where 
is he now?” 

Michael laughed: “Toby? Lordy, no! I never hear, 
and can only guess where he is by an occasional puff in 
some English paper on farming. Sheep are his hobby, you 
know. He’s been skipping about proving a theory of his, 
on ranches in Australia. That’s what gets in the papers. 
Some of the proofs. —Young divil! He’s the greatest 
living rover. Been at it five years now. The farm’s 
always here, if he should want to come home to roost. 
But I’m afraid he won’t.” 

Julie thought of the wild, hot-headed boy she had known, 
who had insisted stormily, unreasoningly, that she should 
marry him—five years ago. She had never heard one 
word from him since that day. . . . And even then she 
had loved his brother. Michael had never known—or had 
he?—of Toby’s mad wooing. But that was all over and 
done with. Long ago, Toby would have forgotten it— 
and her. . . . 

A curve of the river was before them, flowing darkly 
between the snowy rushes at the edge. They crossed the 
bridge, and soon the road began to climb. Farms lay on 
either side: rolling fields, a huddle of barns and hayricks 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


7 

at the end of a rutted lane; woodsmoke rising from a 
squat chimney into the falling snow, sending forth its 
troubling choky fragrance to drift on the still air. A cock 
pheasant rocketed up from a clump of juniper in the 
lee of a stonewall at the side of the narrowing road. 
Julie heard the raucous protesting squawk trail out be¬ 
hind them. 

“It’s heavenly country, isn’t it, Michael?” she said at 
last. 

“I love it. I love it all, Julie,” came the simple answer. 

For a moment again, as the car climbed the hill, there 
fell a silence. Out of it Michael spoke: 

“I haven’t told a soul but sister Naomi what we’re up 
to to-day.” He chuckled, looking straight ahead, “And, 
of course, old Sam and Hannah. They’re in a darling 
old fuss-budget twitter, at the thought that they’re goin’ 
to have a missis. Rather, that I am. Hannah’s been at 
me for years—romantic old dear—to do something about 
my single state of /^blessedness.” He laughed softly, at 
some recollection, and then went on: “All Naomi’s boys 
will be in a whirl of excitement, getting you for their 
aunt.” Then turning spontaneously to his new-made 
wife: “Do you know, Julie, it really will be terribly nice 
to have you living at Windyhill. It needs you. It needs 
you badly.” 

“I wonder—” was the surprising answer. 

“You needn’t,” Michael assured ingenuously. But he 
remembered suddenly what Naomi had said, when he 
had told her of his plans, and had asked her, without a 
thought, what room Julie had better have. She had 
looked at him for a moment, considering him with a sort 


8 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


of quizzical amusement tucked away in her eyes, and 
then had said in her frank way (he couldn’t imagine why 
the words had stuck so in his mind): “Mike, Mike—you’re 
incorrigible! You innocent, altruistic lamb! You were 
born hundreds of years too late. —You were always 'sans 
peur, I’ll grant you; but —'sans reproche , too?” 

He had told her that she was a beautiful old goose. 
Laughing, she had shaken her head, denying all three 
charges; but she had gone to work, cheerfully acquiescing 
in his demands. Julie was to have Naomi’s old room 
looking down over the shoulder of the hill to the river. 

“Naomi will be there to give us a welcome, Julie,” he 
said happily. 

They had come to the highest point of the road. Just 
beyond, a gate stood open into a lane that curved down 
across a snowy sweep of hillside, past three great pine 
trees, to an old square house of brick. 

“Let’s stop, a minute, Mike,” said Julie. “I want to 
see Windyhill all together first.” 

Michael pulled up at the gate and shut off the engine. 
Julie heard him heave a sigh of pleasure: “Isn’t it de¬ 
liciously quiet?” he almost whispered. And then: “Let’s 
smoke!” He drew out a leather case and offered her a 
cigarette. He lighted it for her, then got one going him¬ 
self. The thinning snow rustled faintly in the dry leaves 
of an oak tree beside the road. A few flakes drifted 
idly in on to their knees. From below, a dog barked. 
A blue farm wagon loaded with smoking dressing passed 
them, to the accompanying homely reek of manure. The 
ruddy-faced boy who drove the big chestnut farm horse 
grinned a salute, which Michael answered, and with 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


9 

muffled creaking the cart went on down the way they 
had come. Then all was still. 

It was a splendid sweep of country that lay before them. 
With a curious feeling battling within her, stirring her 
heart and tightening her throat, Julie’s eyes followed the 
snow-blunted curve of ruts bitten into the hillside, past 
the darkness of the pine trees sharp-cut against a white 
world, to the old brick house that was Windyhill,—that 
was Cochrane. Then, as though to match the flight of her 
mind in its sudden wild leap for an old freedom, her 
eyes caught with an odd flash of gratitude the far loop 
of river where it swept about the foot of a darkling wooded 
hill. 

“I like that loop of river, Michael,” she said, her voice 
hushed into control, and then, remembering a nearer duty, 
she brought her eyes back to rest on Michael’s face. “You 
love it very much, don’t you?” she said gravely,—“Windy¬ 
hill. Your life here. . . . Don’t let me ever get in the way 
of it all—and you. Remember, Michael, that I have asked 
that of you.” 

“You dear, foolish woman. How could you?” he an¬ 
swered. “And don’t forget there are two sides to that. 
Give me your hand,” he said. 

He took the hand she gave him into a strong grasp. 
“A compact!” He smiled into her eyes. “Never to 
stand in each other’s way. Remember, you, Julie, that 
means me, too.” 

“I’ll remember, Mike,” she said slowly, steadfast eyes 
meeting his, and gently she withdrew her hand. She 
looked past him to the other side of the road, where a 
group of farm buildings about a farmhouse, a huge red 


10 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


barn and two silos, were so much a part of the slope that 
went on climbing to the pine-clad shoulder of the hill, that 
they might have sprung up there from seeds, long ago, and 
grown with the trees. The early dusk of January was 
beginning to fall. A lighted lantern in the barn hung 
against a stall, showing the quarters and long tail of a 
gray farm horse, and a three-cornered patch of hay just 
above. On a sudden, across the stillness of the yard 
sounded the clink of a milkpail, and men’s cheerful voices. 
A collie came to the open door and stood for a moment, 
then turned slowly away and padded out of sight. 
Julie drew in a long breath, and coming back from her 
thoughts, turned and laid a hand lightly on Michael’s 
knee. “It’s a bargain, Michael,” she said, quite unaware 
of the space of silence that had widened between them. 
Then, with a little shadowy smile, not looking at Michael: 
“My cigarette’s finished. . . . Let’s go on—down the 
hill.” 

“Yes—we’ll go on dow'n the hill, Julie.” As Michael 
looked at her his eyes grew suddenly sober. “But there’s 
something I’d like to say, first. 

“I’m forty years old,—a good bit more than you; and 
I’m a confirmed countryman. This place, and my books, 
—the dogs and horses—are my life. Nothing else matters 
much, I’m afraid,” he confessed. “I hope you’ll be happy 
at Windyhill. And you won’t forget, will you—that now 
—what’s mine, is yours, also?” Without waiting for an 
answer, he started the big roadster and turned into the 
lane that dropped over the hill—going down. 

Dusk was falling on the whiteness of the quiet earth. 
It had stopped snowing, and a strip of clear, pale yel- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


ii 


low showed in the western sky, above the darkness of the 
trees across the river. For a moment Julie saw these 
things, and then as the lane swung past the pine trees 
the old house before them shut the sky away. 

The air was filled with the tang of woodsmoke. Light 
shone out from a lower window. They were there. 

Simultaneously, it seemed to Julie, the door flew open. 
Boys and dogs, all mixed up together, poured forth in a 
hilarious and joyous babel of shouts and barks. One of 
the company had opened the door of the car. 

“Hello, Aunt Julie,” said a boy’s jolly voice. 

“Hello—Pip,” said Julie, laughing into a pair of mis¬ 
chievous eyes. 

Somehow, a cocker puppy had slipped past them all 
and scrabbled up into Julie’s lap. A gleam of hope 
touched Michael Cochrane’s wife. This way she could 
do it. 


2 

“I couldn’t stop the young ruffians. Nothing would hold 
’em. It’s Saturday, you see.” Naomi Sheridan stood smil¬ 
ing in the warm light of the doorway. 

“How are you, dear Julie? I think the boys show you 
what a welcome you have at old Windyhill.” She put her 
arm about the girl before her, in a happy embrace. 

Julie had seen the old hall, a hundred times before. 
But now, in an overwhelming flash of desperation, the 
very warmth and human friendliness of it all made her 
feel an outsider. The fire that leaped up the wide chim¬ 
ney, the black and white setter curled up at one end 


12 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


of the settle, the splendid cherry-colored geranium that 
stood in the deep-set window beyond the door,—joyous 
boys and barking dogs, her husband, and lovely laughing 
Naomi,—they all belonged: would she, ever? 

But they gave her, mercifully, no chance to entertain, 
for long, any such troubling thoughts. Nine-year-old 
Martin, the youngest Sheridan, with his fair hair and 
long, gray Cochrane eyes, was at her elbow, looking up 
with his engaging smile: “There’s the most splendid big 
tea,” he told her, and a friendly paw was thrust into hers. 
“Micky said we’d have to call you Aunt Julie now.” His 
eyes twinkled with fun. “We almost had a scrap about 
it. I said Julie was better by itself, just like always.” 

“Mike’s all the handle I ever get, and my hair’s as gray 
as a badger,” broke in Michael. “Come on, Marty. 
Where’s the big tea?” He looked down at Julie with 
half shy, half possessive concern in his fine eyes. “Wouldn’t 
you like to nip up, first, to your room, for a spot of pow¬ 
der or such?” 

Julie had never loved him more than at that moment. 
She smiled and shook her head. 

“Take off your cute little hat, Aunt Julie,” said Micky, 
who frolicked through life the middle brother of the five, 
“so we can see the fire shining on your nice red hair.” 

“Yes, do,” urged Martin. “Pip said you looked just 
like a Madonna—however they look—the lovely way you 
part it in the middle” 

Tom tweaked Martin’s ear, and Micky burst out laugh¬ 
ing. Someone trod on a dog’s tail, drawing forth from 
the sufferer an outraged yelp. 

Julie’s coat and hat were off and borne proudly to a 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


!3 

place of safety by quiet Tim, who came next to Martin. 
Then Naomi had her arm through Julie’s and they were 
all crowding cheerfully along the hall to the old library 
at the southern end of the house. 

“There’s probably a dog in every chair,” warned 
Michael. 

“And why not?” said Naomi placidly. “You never 
told ’em nay. —We’re really all dreadful barbarians,” she 
confided to Julie with a disarming smile. 

“Like the Duchess’s neighbors in ‘Alice in Wonderland’,” 
suggested Pip at Julie’s elbow, “ ‘We’re all mad here.’ ” 
Of Naomi’s five boys, Julie knew best, and loved most, 
sixteen-year-old Pip. She turned to him now with a quick 
smile of amusement. 

“My God!” burst out Michael, at the door of the library, 
“I damn near forgot about Hannah and Sam. 

“Hang on a minute. I promised ’em—welcome—you 
know,” he made a vague gesture, and was gone. 

“Well, let’s get near the fire and tea, anyway,” said 
Naomi serenely. “There’s not room for the whole troop 
to foregather here on the threshold.” 

It was a fascinating room. To Julie, who loved old 
things, color and beauty, it had always been a delight. 
Gracious and livable with an indefinable charm that was 
a happy mixture of simplicity and sophistication. A room 
made by men and women who knew, and cared deeply 
for, old lovely things. Its beautifully proportioned win¬ 
dows looked over fair rolling country that was theirs . . . 
farmlands, wooded hills against the sky, a winding river. 
. . . A fire burned on the wide hearth. There were 
flowers (Michael loved flowers, and Naomi was a genius 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


14 

with them), golden and tawny wallflowers in a copper jar, 
pale yellow freesia in a thin old flip glass. They filled 
the room with a cool fragrance that was apart from the 
delicious warmth of the burning pine logs. 

Tea was indeed there. Martin had in no way exag¬ 
gerated. Michael, too, had been right. At least three 
chairs were filled. Tails wagged, patiently expectant dog 
eyes were fastened upon the array before the fire. But 
no morsel had been touched. Barbarians they might 
be, but there was one law that was not lightly broken. 
Punishment was sure to follow, and swiftly, upon such a 
lapse. 

“Oh—everyone, how heavenly it is,—this room,” whis¬ 
pered Julie. “I never remember just how nice. It’s a 
fresh surprise each time.” 

“Hist!” prompted Micky in a stage whisper from the 
doorway,—“Rightabout face. Here comes It,—the ‘Wel¬ 
come.’ ” 

“Be still, Micky, you young idiot,” chuckled his eldest 
brother, Tom. 

There was a rustle of starched calico. In the waiting 
silence a board creaked. 

“It’s a proud day for us, so, Mr. Michael,” said a cheery 
voice. 

“For me, too, Hannah,” came Michael’s reassuring an¬ 
swer. Micky scudded out of the way and slid behind the 
door. A gurgle, ending in a suppressed squeak, came 
from Martin, and they were there: Michael, towering in 
the doorway behind a plump, rosy-cheeked woman with 
gold-rimmed spectacles, and a wiry little man with sandy 
hair, and of indeterminate years, bringing up the rear. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


15 

Julie had known them both since she could remember, 
these two old servants of the Cochrane family; but now 
a sudden wave of shyness swept her. Then the firelight 
caught and flickered on one of the lenses of Hannah’s 
spectacles. It was absurdly as though she winked. Julie’s 
face broke into its thrilling smile. She was shaking hands, 
and she was listening to the old woman’s solemn words of 
greeting. 

“I’ve know’d ye, Miss Julie, since ye were no bigger 
nor a rollin’ puppy. I’ve know’d ye too when that bright 
flame of yer hair went flashin’ as ye wheeled overright 
the hill on yer speckled pony. Praise be to God for this 
day, that ye should look favor on Mr. Michael, an’ he 
left lonely as a gold eagle up on the high mountain!” 

Tears burned behind Julie’s eyes at the beauty and the 
pathos of the old Irishwoman’s words. In a rush of 
gratitude she had leaned and kissed the soft wrinkled 
cheek. “Thank you, Hannah,” she said simply, and turn¬ 
ing held out her hand to Sam. 

“Welcome to home, Mrs. Michael,” he said. 

“The tea looks splendid, Hannah,” Naomi broke in 
cheerfully upon the solemnity of the moment. 

“Will there be enough, so, for all the boys?” asked 
Hannah, coming down to earth as it were, with a breath 
of relief. “Boys is hungry things.” 

“There’s mounds of it,” assured Pip with an encouraging 
grin. “Don’t let that worry you, Hannah, Hannah, Han¬ 
nah.” 

The two old servants having departed, a happy hum of 
voices ensued. Casual and friendly. Naomi, blithely ig¬ 
noring (for the simple reason that she never thought of it) 


i6 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


that this girl with the shapely flaming head was now 
Michael’s wife, and therefore should be in the place she 
so many times had filled in the haphazard easy-going 
ways of the house, was pouring out the tea. She knew 
just how everyone liked it, and quickly and deftly pro¬ 
ceeded with the business of letting them have it, keeping 
going, the while, an amusing scatter of conversation. Mak¬ 
ing, in some way known to her, sense and continuity hold 
sway over and above the apparent irrelevancy of different 
bits of news, or startling (to the uninitiated) snatches of 
information, flung at her from Michael or one of the 
boys. Unshaken by it all, she calmly tossed back telling 
sentences, even as she addressed her entrancing, half- 
amused attention to Julie. 

From the bottom of her heart Julie blessed her. And 
then forgot even to do that. 

“That’s nonsense, Tom,” (Naomi, to her eldest-born, 
just turned eighteen). “You simply expect the impos¬ 
sible.” 

“No, Mother, I don’t.” 

“Good heavens! Give the man a chance. If in these 
mad times, like the Duchess’s cook in the inimitable scene 
from ‘Alice’ that Pip’s just quoted, the President flings a 
a handful of pepper in the soup, it’s just what it needs. 
Let the good man stir it hard—the soup. Supposing the 
world and his wife do sneeze a bit at each stir of the Big 
Spoon: let ’em! So far, no one has dared to stir the 
Soup Pot vigorously enough. That’s been the real trouble.” 
Here she gave a delicious chuckle and held up a hand: 
“That’s all, friends. The Storm is over.” 

“Incorrigible woman!” said Michael, with a grin of 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


17 

brotherly amusement. “You’ve damn well hit the nail 
on the head.” 

Michael and young Tom Sheridan were standing before 
the fire. What a fine big thing Michael was, thought 
Naomi in a surge of affection. Distinguished looking, too, 
and utterly unaware. He turned, just then, to look down 
at Julie. She was bending to caress the black cocker 
puppy in her lap. The firelight shone on her face. Pip 
had been fairly astute, thought his mother. Julie was 
rather like a Madonna— There was a certain asceticism 
about her face. The pure line of cheekbone and jaw, the 
shadowy smile about her lips. She was looking up now 
at Michael, and there was a quality, subtle and arresting, 
about that thin face, that stirred Naomi to quick wonder. 
Those long, gray-green eyes, with their dark lashes—not 
like any Madonna, they! Just Julie, withdrawn, aloof 
now, but potential fire. How would it all come out? 
flashed the question, unbidden, through Naomi’s head. 

In the corner of the room, Pip had begun to play the 
piano—a dreaming sort of thing. Micky was feeding 
bits of muffin to Michael’s water spaniel, Fanny. Tim 
and little Martin had rolled up a corner of the rug be¬ 
hind the table, across the hearth from Naomi, and, 
sprawled out in the bare floor, were playing a horse¬ 
racing game. A faint protesting squeak came from the 
handle that wound in the horses on their strings. Lying 
back in the depths of her chair, Naomi gave herself up 
to tranquil speculations, letting things and time slide 
blissfully by, to the whisper and flicker of the fire. The 
world was a nice sort of place, even if the times were fast 
and furious, and for the moment things seemed on the 


i8 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


brink of ruin. She closed her eyes and listened to Pip, 
vaguely conscious, at the same time, that Michael was 
showing something to Julie that delighted her. 

In the quiet of the house she heard the front door shut 
with a subdued thud. Sherry’s come, she thought con¬ 
tentedly. 

“Hello everybody,—anybody!” The words rang out, 
stirring the peaceful room to life, sudden, dynamic. Foot¬ 
steps crossed the hall. A glad, incredulous " Toby!” sprang 
from Michael. 

In the doorway, seeming to bring with him the feeling 
of wind and sun and wide places, stood a man with thick 
light hair and incredibly weather-tanned face. His eyes 
leaped into sudden mirth, at the sight before him. 

“The prodigal son’s returned,” said a laughing voice. 
—“I smell the fatted calf a’roasting.” 


3 

The Sheridans had departed an hour ago, to take their 
happy-go-lucky way down the snowy hillside to the house 
by the river, that, in a fashion known only to Naomi 
and the old house itself, tucked them all away under its 
rambling roof. Michael had gone with Julie up to her 
room, and shortly after, at an urgent call from his foreman, 
had left for the farm. 

In the hall, the fire burned, whispering across the silence 
to the grandfather clock by the stairs, that ticked solemnly 
on, making, as is the way of life, more commotion in the 
mere telling of it, than did time, itself, in passing. Two 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


*9 

setters and the black cocker puppy slept in prone aban¬ 
donment on the rug before the hearth. At the end of 
the settle Toby Cochrane sat nursing the head of a drowsy 
water spaniel upon his knees. His fair head rested against 
the high back, and the firelight flickered over his thin, 
brown face. His eyes, fastened upon a flame that licked 
up between two logs, brooded unseeing. For a long time 
nothing had happened to break the quiet or stir him from 
the thoughts that were his. It might have seemed that 
nothing ever would. Then a log fell apart; a dog lifted 
his head; light footsteps crossed the hall above. Toby 
came back from his dream, and turned his head against 
the back of the settle to watch the stairs that went up 
along the paneled wall, in the corner. Slowly, unaware, 
Julie was coming down, moving with lithesome grace, 
the soft black of her dress clinging to her slimness and 
trailing after her with a faint swishing sound. Her face, 
beneath her flame of hair, was more pale than usual. 
Toby slid out from under the weight of the sleeping spaniel 
(she went on sleeping, undismayed), and got to his feet. 

“Greetings, Mrs. Cochrane!” he said, and there was a 
glint of raillery in his eyes. 

“Hello, Toby,” Julie answered with a smile, and came 
on down the stairs. 

“Scram, dogs!” With the toe of a slippered foot Toby 
gently stirred up the sleeping setters. Then: “Come up 
and toast your shins,” he invited. “Mike had to fly to 
the farm, on a hurry call. Cows will calve, if the roof 
is falling.” 

The girl’s eyes twinkled, “And if it isn’t?” 

“Julie—you’re beautifully the same,” Toby said sud- 


20 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


denly. Then he thrust out a hand to grasp hers: “I’m 
terribly sorry about your father,” he said impulsively, “I 
didn’t know, of course—before.” 

“Thank you, Toby,” she answered simply, her beautiful, 
grave eyes for a quiet moment meeting his. “I know you 
are.” Then gently withdrawing her hand, she turned 
away and stood looking down into the fire. 

Something stirred in Toby. Something tremendous, and 
frightening, and old as time. . . . Oh, he thought he 
had forgotten it all—had got over it, absolutely. And now 
—that same disturbing fragrance swam about him, assail¬ 
ing his senses, moving his soul. So cool, so subtle, like 
wild white violets. . . . Her gray-green eyes . . . the way 
her dark lashes lay upon her cheeks . . . that beautiful 
smooth head. ... It was all there,—every smallest, ex¬ 
quisite bit of it . . . even the things he had forgotten, 
until now. 

As he stood there, his eyes upon her, the door behind 
him opened. He turned to see Sam. 

“Mrs. Michael—?” The old man cleared his throat. 
“It’s Mr. Michael, on the telephone. He has to stay a 
bit. And will ye and Mr. Toby have dinner, he says. 
He’ll come direct back, so—whin it’s over.” 

Julie had turned about: “All right, Sam. Thank you,” 
she said gravely. Toby, watching Julie, waited till Sam had 
gone. Then: “Didn’t I tell you?” he whispered, with a 
chuckle. “The roof is falling.” 

“You’re a goose, Toby,” said Julie; but she laughed 
softly as she said it. 

Thus it was, for the simple and unavoidable farm reason 
that a cow’s time had come, that, on her wedding night, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


21 


Julie took her first meal in her husband’s house, with¬ 
out her husband, and with her husband’s brother. 

No one would ever know what thoughts and feelings 
whirled beneath Toby Cochrane’s calm exterior during 
that meal. Nor what misgivings, or hopes, or despairs, 
found their way into the mind of the girl who looked 
quietly forth upon this strange bridal feast. 

At the head of the old oval table, with the fire behind 
her, and a gray-eyed Cochrane of the past looking down 
from the wall upon her firelit head, sat Michael Cochrane’s 
new-made wife. Upon her right, broad and spare in his 
decorous dinner jacket, sat Michael Cochrane’s brother. 
At the foot of the table, beyond the silver candelabra, and 
a bowl of deep blue Staffordshire filled with grapes, the 
light of the candles shone mistily on Michael Cochrane’s 
empty place. 

They talked of simple things, the ranch in Australia, 
sheep and the ways of sheep; and Toby told of the joys of 
certain hardships, in a big, sun-swept country. 

And when the meal was over, when no Michael came, 
gravely Toby took up his glass of amber sherry. Stand¬ 
ing, he held it high, his eyes upon his brother’s wife. 

“To the bride!” he said. “Happy days!” He drank 
the wine, and, turning, tossed the empty glass on to the 
hearth, where it fell with a clink and tinkle, breaking 
into fragments that caught the firelight and twinkled 
back. 

Julie bowed her head. Then taking up her own as 
yet untouched wine, she rose slowly to her feet. Lifting 
the glass, she looked down the table to Michael’s empty 
place. 


22 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“To Michael!” she said, and to Toby, watching her, it 
seemed that her eyes burned with the clear brightness 
of a green flame. Then, even as she drank the wine, the 
front door opened and swiftly shut. Someone was run- 
ing up the stairs, two at a time. Footsteps sounded 
overhead. 

Michael, still faintly reminiscent of carbolic, but with 
a smile lining his lean face, his splendid eyes very happy, 
met them at the library door. 

“Well—?” drawled Toby wickedly. 

“A bull calf,” answered Michael, and laughed. He slid 
his arm through Julie’s and swept her across to a deep 
chair before the fire. 

“It was a rotten shame the old girl chose this particular 
moment, Julie,” he said. “She was having a tough time 
of it, and Joe knew I would hate to lose her. So— 
forgive me, my dear, will you?” 

“Of course, Mike.” She smiled at him; and he stood 
off and looked at her with naive delight. “You look good 
enough to eat,” he said. “You really do. Doesn’t she, 
Toby?” 

“You’d better try something more substantial, I’d say,” 
suggested Toby mildly. 

“Lots o’ time for that,” was the casual answer, and 
Michael hauled a dog out of the chair before them: “Sit 
down, Julie. You must be tired.” 

Julie shook her head and slipped down into the chair 
that was still warm from the body of Michael’s water 
spaniel. 

“Now—go ahead, you two big things,” she told them. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


23 

“You are both aching to talk farm and sheep and top- 
dressing. Don’t let me stop you. I’m a farmer, too, 
remember.” 

With a laugh Michael dropped on to the end of the 
fire-bench close to her knees. But Toby strolled over 
to the piano, in the corner, and sat down before it. 

“Here’s something you’ll like, Mike,” he said, and 
plunged into a wild, lawless thing, with a lilt to it, that 
died suddenly to the whisper of a song, like the voices of 
lovers. He broke off and laughed. 

“What’s that?” shot out Michael. “I like it, all right. 
What is it, Toby?” 

“ Gypsy -” 

“Play it again,” said Julie briefly, “or go on with it 
. . . more of it, anyway.” 

“You’re the one who ought to be here,” demurred 
Toby; but he played it again. 

Julie watched Michael, his head upflung, staring into 
the corner where Toby was. His hand, on the bench, 
was close to her knee. Unconsciously he moved it and 
touched her. A shiver ran through Julie. . . . And he 
was not even thinking of her. She dropped her eyes to 
hide away his face, and there, upon the hand in her lap, 
winked the ring he had slipped on, a few hours ago. 
. . . “Soberly, advisedly . . .” 

Toby had stopped, as suddenly as he had begun. 
He got up and came back to stand looking down at 
the two by the fire: “I don’t suppose you’d play a bit, 
would you, Julie?” he asked tentatively. “Sing just one 
song?” 


2 4 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


Julie knew that Michael, too, was looking at her. He 
put his hand on her knee, but he said nothing. Could 
it be possible—? She looked swiftly up, to find his eyes, 
smiling, alight, just hopelessly friendly. 

“Will you, Jude?” he begged, using the old-time child- 
name. 

Something happened, then, in Julie. Something daunt¬ 
less and forceful: she would do it—be Michael’s wife, in 
Michael’s way, and take the consequences. . . . 

“You two foolish people,” she said lightly; “of course, 
if you want it. Only, sit where you are.” 

She got slowly up and left them there before the hearth. 
Sitting down at the piano, she seemed to consider them for 
a moment, as though from far away; then, with a fugi¬ 
tive smile, she said almost dreamily: “I’m not going to 
ask what to sing. I think I may know. . . .” Michael 
got to his feet, as she played a few quiet chords. With no 
more warning than that, she began to sing. 

It was a cradle song, known and loved by all of them. 
The crooning lullaby, that hushed some little, unseen 
baby to sleep, floated out in Julie’s delicious voice, filling 
the old room and strangely stirring the hearts of the two 
men who listened. 

The last lovely minor note trailed away, and died. 
“God, Julie, I’d forgotten—” whispered Michael. But 
Toby said nothing. Not a word. Julie got up from the 
piano, and Michael, with shining eyes, was going to meet 
her. “You’re wonderful,” he said. 

She held out her hands to him, quite simply: “I think 
I’ll go to bed,” she said. “Good-night to you, Michael.” 

Her hands still in his, she turned and spoke to the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


25 

man before the fire: “Good-night, Toby. Thank you for 
entertaining me, and for your toast.” 

He looked at her for an odd moment of silence, from 
where he stood; then, drawing in his breath sharply, he 
gave a short laugh. “Don’t thank me, Julie,” he said. 

Arm in arm, Michael and Julie crossed the hall and went 
on in silence up the stairs to the room, that had once be¬ 
longed to Naomi. Inside, a lamp shone, a fire burned 
with fitful, drowsy flicker, violets stood in an old blue 
bowl upon the table beside the bed. At the threshold 
Michael stopped. He turned Julie to him, and put his 
hands upon her shoulders. 

“I want to make you happy,” he told her quietly. Then 
unexpectedly he leaned and kissed her. 

“You won’t mind, just this one night,” he said gently, 
and turning away, he left her. 


4 

After Julie and Michael had gone, Toby stood just as 
they had left him, leaning a shoulder against the narrow 
shelf above the fireplace, his eyes fastened on the empty 
doorway, through which the two had passed arm in arm. 
For suddenly, with vivid intensity, his mind had gone 
back to the last time he had seen Julie, on that spring 
afternoon more than five years ago. He had been storm¬ 
ing up and down, like a caged tiger, in that old room in 
the house tucked under the hill. At last, because of the 
very stillness of the girl at whom he raged, he had come 


26 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


to a halt before her. He remembered now exactly how she 
had looked. The light of the setting sun, in a long slant 
through the open window, had touched her hair to bur¬ 
nished copper, as she held her small, fine head high, and 
looked at him with those green eyes of hers, that could 
be so remote. But they were not so, then. They were 
filled with a sort of quiet sorrow, with no shade of pity 
to wound him. That look had told him, more than any 
words, how hopeless it all was—how utterly hopeless. . . . 
Until to-night, he had not seen her, nor even heard from 
her, for five years. He had thought it was quite over and 
done with. . . . He would fool them all, and come 
home. . . . 

Suddenly he lifted his head and gave an unhappy laugh. 
'7’m the fool!” he said to the empty room. A dog stirred. 
He looked down ruefully, and gently tapped with his 
foot Michael’s black and white setter. “Well, old man, I 
guess that’s that,” he said. 

At the sound of footsteps he turned his head, to see 
Michael standing in the doorway. 

“Come on, Tobias,” the latter invited genially, “let’s 
forage. I’m starved.” 

Speechless, his face filled with blank amazement which 
was lost on his brother’s back, Toby moved slowly after 
the retreating figure, across the hall, down the passage to 
the old kitchen in the ell. 

Michael disappeared into the pantry, where the ice chest 
stood. Foraging upon Hannah’s well-stocked larder, he 
hummed the song Julie had just sung. There came 
the occasional subdued clink of one piece of china hit¬ 
ting against another, as he lifted and moved the things 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


27 

about. Without a word Toby had draped his long person 
on the corner of the kitchen table. The light had waked 
the canary in the cage that hung in the window, above 
some pink geraniums. It gave a sleepy chirp. Then 
Michael was crossing the kitchen, and Toby saw that he 
was grinning, like a successful marauding little boy. 
“Good hunting,” he said, as he dumped a bottle of ale on 
the table at Toby’s thigh. 

There followed some bread and cheese, and the leg of 
a cold turkey. “Have some?” he asked. 

“God, no!” Toby laughed in spite of himself. “You 
forget the marriage feast. I was at it, if the groom was 
not.” 

Michael had got a glass and was pouring out some ale. 
“It was a rotten piece of luck,” he agreed, “but Julie 
wouldn’t mind.” 

“Perhaps not. I grant that you may know the ways of 
wives better than I.” He shrugged his shoulders. Michael, 
unconscious of any hidden meaning, was wielding the 
turkey leg. He looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. 
“I suppose it was a bit of a surprise, finding Julie here 
for keeps—” 

“Rather,” said Toby. 

“You see, it happened quite out of the blue, after her 
father died,” Michael explained. 

“I see—” (Toby didn’t see, in the least, yet). “Did 
Byrd leave anything?” 

Michael shook his head, and took some bread and cheese. 

“What about Julie? Does she know?” 

“She’ll never have to.” Michael fed a crust to the cocker 


puppy. 


28 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“The place was probably mortgaged to the hilt,” observed 
Toby, half questioning. 

Michael nodded. 

“Won’t she have to know that?” 

“Why?” 

“You mean, you hold it?” 

“I did— It’s Julie’s now,” finished Michael serenely, 
and he looked up, with a sudden smile, at his brother. 

“Catechism over?” he asked, amused and friendly. 

“You like to hide your light under a bushel, old Cock, 
don’t you?” came the crisp retort, and before Michael could 
take him up, “You’re pretty much of a philanthropist, at 
heart.” 

The puppy, with Michael’s help, had at last achieved his 
lap. Michael looked slowly up to the quizzical eyes above 
him. 

“One doesn’t think of a thing like that as—philanthropy, 
Tobe. Julie is my wife, you remember.” 

“Yes—I remember,” answered Toby evenly. 

Michael, holding the cocker against his big chest, looked 
over the puppy’s head. 

“It hasn’t knocked you up, old fellar, has it,—my get¬ 
ting married?” He put the question quietly, his eyes 
searching his younger brother’s face. —“It’s not going to 
make a bit of difference between you and me,” he as¬ 
sured. 

Toby made no direct answer to this. Sitting there, 
swinging a long leg from the corner of the table, he looked 
soberly down at Michael. 

“I hope things will turn out as you believe,” he offered 
enigmatically. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


29 

“What do you mean?” Michael spoke with slow won¬ 
der. 

“My God, Mike, you must admit that you are doing 
a rather unique thing.” 

Michael’s eyes darkened curiously. “In what way, 
Toby?” He was unconsciously pushing his brother into 
a corner. 

“Why, man, you don’t love each other—you and Julie. 
—Do you?” 

“No,” said Michael briefly—simply. 

A sudden flush darkened the younger man’s weathered 
face: “You’re not even living together,” he burst out, fac¬ 
ing Michael as it were from the corner where he had been 
pushed, his back to the wall. 

“How can that possibly matter to you?” said Michael 
steadily. “Julie and I are satisfied.” 

For a moment Toby was silent. The clock on the wall 
ticked solemnly. A sleepy chirp came from the canary’s 
cage. At last Toby stirred, with an impatient push of his 
supporting foot. 

“It—doesn’t seem decent!” he shot out. 

A spark of anger flickered in Michael’s eyes. Then sud¬ 
denly it touched off a flame of laughter, that licked up and 
broke over his face. 

“Good Lord, Toby—have you turned prude, playing with 
all those woolly sheep of yours? If it isn’t decent for a 
man to have his wife live under his roof—regardless of 
the room she picks on—what, in heaven’s name, is decent?” 

“Sorry, Mike,” said Toby, “to have said anything. It’s 
none of my damn business.” He got up from the table, 
strolled over and sniffed a geranium, his back to Michael. 


3° 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“Toby! Look here—you young idiot!” Toby swung 
slowly about. “Though I’ll not say it’s none of your damn 
business, I’ll vouch for making it mine—to see that Julie 
doesn’t regret this. I’ll do anything in my power—I swear 
it—to make her happy. —Yes— anything . If you can 
honestly help, at any time, I ask you, now, to do so. I ask 
you, too, to stay here at Windyhill this winter. I need 
you, Toby. That is,—” he smiled suddenly, whimsically, 
“if the ‘Red Gods’ don’t call too loud. Wait for the ‘spring 
fret’, at any rate.” He held out his hand. “How about 
it, Toby?” 

A curious look swept Toby’s face. Then he laughed. 
He strode across to Michael, and putting out a hand took 
the one held forth to him. 

“Right!” he said, and then, surprisingly, “God knows I 
owe you something.” 

“Don’t be an ass,” said Michael. 


Chapter Two 


i 

J ULIE stood at the head of the stairs, where she had 
quietly come, and looked down into the hall below. 
A shaft of sunlight fell across the cherry-colored gera¬ 
nium in the east window, and lay in a slanting patch 
along the floor. A newly lighted fire snapped and 
crackled upon the hearth, and before it, with lifted head 
and expectant eyes directed at Julie, lay Michael’s water 
spaniel. Her tail slowly brushing to and fro, she waited 
further developments. A smile flickered about Julie’s lips, 
and died. Still she stood there, with one hand resting 
on the smooth knob of the newel post. 

It was unmistakably Sunday. Except for the sputter 
of the fire and the slow tick of the clock, all was still. 
A waiting, almost palpable quiet brooded over the old 
house. 

It was suddenly broken. With a wheeze of warning, 
the clock began to strike. Eight o’clock. Fanny got up, 


31 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 2 

and humping her stern, stretched her fore legs, then 
pulling up with slow deliberation, shook so that her ears 
flapped and the ring on her collar clinked against the 
buckle. As Julie came on down the stairs the spaniel 
yawned cavernously and padded across to meet her. Lean¬ 
ing over, Julie caressed the dog’s chocolate-colored head. 
“We’re going out,” she announced briefly. “Everything’s 
asleep but you and me.” 

Outside on the low step she stood for a moment while 
Fanny trotted leisurely about sniffing the morning world 
to see if it had changed over night. It was surprisingly 
mild. Already, with the sun but an hour high, the snow 
had begun to melt, showing a gleam of ridiculously green 
grass along the wall of the house. Fanny finally took 
herself galumping off around the end of the kitchen 
ell, and then, as Julie still waited there for a minute with¬ 
out moving, three chickadees lighted a few yards away 
in a curve of the ruts, and had a little chirping gossip 
while they pecked a hurried breakfast from the seed that 
Hannah always threw out for them in the winter. At 
last, with the brief inconsequence of chickadees, they flew 
off. Julie stirred and lifted her eyes to the hill, lightly 
covered with snow, that rose before her in a long slope, 
to thrust its wooded crown against the sky. “I love it,” 
she whispered. “If only—” But resolutely she shut away 
more thoughts leading in that direction. . . . Somewhere 
beyond the hill church bells were ringing. Julie walked 
slowly off along the snowy ruts of the lane. 

Without once looking back, she climbed until she came 
to the gate into the road, and looked across to the farm 
barns on the other side. Three pigeons, a white and two 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


33 

russet ones, took their deliberate way along the ridgepole 
of the bigger barn. Reaching the end, they flew off with 
subdued clapping of wings, to light, one after the other, 
on the top of a silo. Some Guernsey heifers, in the yard, 
wandered aimlessly, bunching together, then meandering 
farther, in the desultory way of their kind. It was very 
peaceful. For the moment, no human being seemed to 
be about. Julie turned and looked back. 

On the left of the lane the orchard climbed almost to the 
road,—gnarled apple trees, with crooked, well pruned 
branches. Michael was keen in his knowledge of fruit 
trees, and had worked hard to preserve these old-timers. 
At the foot of the orchard lay the gardens, and beyond, 
against the old brick wall that shut them away from the 
house, were some frames, and an ancient potting shed 
covered with lichen. Right at the corner, its smooth gray 
branches sweeping down over the shed and wall, grew a 
huge silver beech. 

Directly below stood the square old house built of brick. 
Windyhill, with its group of tall pines rising up darkly 
to make a well-known landmark. Smoke rose slowly, 
faintly blue, from the big middle chimney, and from the 
chimney in the wing of silver-gray, weathered clapboards. 
The kitchen, and Hannah frying fish balls, thought Julie 
with a smile. Then her eyes went on down the hill to the 
river flowing in a wide sweep past great hemlocks on the 
farther shore, and, following the curve of wind-ruffled 
water, were caught by the flash and wink of gold. It was 
the weather vane of the Sheridans’ house, tucked away in 
a fold of the hill. 

At that moment the ubiquitous Fanny came bounding 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


34 

up. Julie gave an amused little laugh. “Come on, girl,” 
she said, “Breakfast.” She started off jogging down the 
lane with the delighted dog. 

As they passed the pine trees the front door opened 
and Michael came out. Catching sight of him, Julie 
slowed down, and Michael stepped forth to meet and 
greet his wife, with only a stir of pleasure, and no realiza¬ 
tion that such a necessity was unique. His eyes dwelt 
happily upon the approaching figure, and suddenly he 
laughed: 

“Mornin’, Julie. Whither away?” 

“Mornin’, Mike,” answered Julie, and then lightly, as 
she, too, laughed (he was so nice to look at in his blue 
clothes and blue-and-white spotted tie,—so big and 

friendly), “Dutiful wife, running full tilt to meet her 
husband,” she told him. 

Without more ado he took her hand and drew her 
arm through his. Thus they made their way to the 

open door, and went in. 

From the hearth in the hall, where he stood with his 

back to the fire, Toby gave them cheerful greeting. 

“Mornin’, Cock and Hen. Did you grub up many 
worms?” 

A slow smile broke over Julie’s face. “The chickadees 
got ’em all,” she answered serenely; and then, “But why 
‘Hen’?” 

“What else?” was the calm retort. Toby shrugged and 
shot a look of secret amusement at his brother. “Always 
called him Cock. . . . You’re the wife—” he shrugged his 
spare shoulders again, as though to show how inevitably 
what he would say followed—“What else but Hen? Do 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


35 

you always rise at break o’ dawn?” he finished mildly. 

“Is he often such a goose, Mike?” asked Julie, in mock 
despair, 

“Often,” was the sober answer. Then, with quick 
change to laughter,—“Come on in to breakfast.” 

Julie never forgot that breakfast. Sitting there at the 
head of Michael’s table, she poured coffee from the old 
silver coffee-pot into the thin, handleless cups of old blue 
Canton. She had to ask Michael how he liked to have it. 
Which fact, though it seemed strange to her, and significant 
of her anomalous position in his house, he took entirely 
for granted. Sam, much titivated, in a new black coat and 
obviously new shoes (a faint, sly squeak went with him 
wherever he trod), watched her slightest need, in a manner 
almost embarrassing, and yet very touching. 

The two men, frankly ravenous, between them tucked 
away countless crisp fish balls and, it seemed to Julie, as 
many eggs. They were incredulous that two of Han¬ 
nah’s fish balls, and not even one egg, could possibly 
satisfy one’s Sunday morning capacity. 

Once a wave of strangeness, at her surroundings and 
the circumstances thereof, swept over Julie. She loved 
Michael. She was Michael’s wife. But these very facts, 
now that she was living under his roof, she realized, with 
a stab of dismay, set him further away from,' her than 
before. Suddenly, in the curious way one’s mind at such 
a time grasps on little things, she pictured Michael in his 
own room—a room where she had no place, which she 
had not seen for years—standing before his mirror, in his 
shirt-sleeves, choosing a tie, thinking a man’s thoughts, 
entirely disassociated from her woman’s mind. He was 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


36 

leading—he would go on leading—his own separate life. 
She would have to watch him leading that life, longing 
to be a part of it, but outwardly accepting—everything. 

“Are we all going to church this morning?” Toby’s 
question plunged itself into the middle of Julie’s thoughts. 
She turned to Michael. “Are we?” she asked. 

Michael was in the act of taking out his cigarette case. 
He offered it to Julie, and produced a light: “Would you 
like to?” His eyes were on the flame held against the 
end of Julie’s cigarette. The process of lighting accom¬ 
plished, Julie looked up at him. “I always do,” she said 
simply. And then she smiled. “I’ll have to, now, anyway, 
to watch you come sedately in, on the heels of old Mr. 
Partridge.” 

“Is he still at that?” Toby blew a shaft of smoke ceiling- 
ward. “Mike’s terrible virtuous, Julie.” 

Michael caught Julie’s eyes, and grinned. “Because I 
don’t lift a dollar now and then out of the contribution 
box?” 

“No,” put in Toby calmly, “the whole shooting-match. 
Think I’ll go and watch him, Julie—proceedin’ decorously 
up the aisle. I’ll walk,” he announced. 


2 

It seemed so strange to Julie to be sitting in a different 
pew in the old church where she had gone so often with 
her father. Those paneled, box-like pews, painted white, 
with each its door; the narrow, red cushions, the long, 
narrow footstools, covered with crimson carpeting, that 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


37 


had a way of tipping over at the most inauspicious mo¬ 
ments. So many times, as she had sat in her father’s 
pew in the east transept, she had seen Michael’s mother, 
gracious, slim, and reposeful, and Michael’s tall father, 
walk up the aisle, followed by their two big sons. Had 
watched the face of Michael’s mother, lighted by a sort 
of humorous and whimsical amusement, and seen a hand 
thrust forth with deft help, as her men coped with the get¬ 
ting off and stowing away of bulky overcoats, in the 
businesslike way of their kind over such acts in church. 
Now she was sitting beside Michael, in that pew—another 
Mrs. Michael Cochrane. It seemed unreal to her, and 
hard to believe. But to Michael, apparently, as though 
it had always been. 

Once, as they prayed, kneeling side by side, his shoul¬ 
der touched hers. She bowed lower and asked, with 
sudden fervor, that she might not fail him . . . and 
unconsciously Michael moved away. All through the ser¬ 
mon—the text was taken from Isaiah, the beautiful convinc¬ 
ing words from the mouth of the prophet, of those who 
believe: . . ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth 

with peace”—she kept her eyes fastened upon the fine 
upright figure of old Mr. Partridge, standing there in the 
pulpit, his silvery head thrown back, the flowing lines of 
his long, black robe falling away . . . conscious always 
of that other figure, beside her, sitting quietly with folded 
arms, one big shoulder pressing against the paneled end of 
the pew. 

. . . Eight months ago, at the foot of the steps before 
the altar, shut away forever, had lain all that was left of 
her father. She closed her eyes for a minute, and saw 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


38 

again the boughs of apple blossoms—because of all flower¬ 
ing things he had loved them most—covering him there. 
A wave of fresh anguish swept over her now. She would 
never see her father, on earth, again. . . . 

Yesterday, before that altar, she and Michael had taken 
each other for better for worse, to love, honor, and cherish. 
The swift and solemn trust of life, for each, was now more 
great, whether or not it was acknowledged. . . . Julie saw 
Michael lean forward for a hymn book, and became sud¬ 
denly aware that the sermon was over. The hymn sung, 
they stood side by side, with bowed heads, for the benedic¬ 
tion. . . . Toby was putting on his coat. 

Outside, on the steps of the church, were Naomi and 
Pip. Beyond, talking to a tall old man, was Ambrose 
Sheridan, with little Martin. 

“There’s Uncle David,” whispered Toby. “Isn’t he 
splendid?” 

A pair of eyes, as gray and fine as Michael’s,—strangely 
like—had seen them. The old man was smiling straight 
at Julie. In another moment his hand held hers. “I’m 
your Uncle David, now,” he said. “Don’t forget, Julie.” 
Julie had known him always. She loved him from that 
moment. 

The next minute Toby had claimed David Cochrane 
and was wringing his hand. “Is the rover going’ to stop 
long enough to trot over for Sunday-night supper with 
the old man?” Julie heard him ask Toby. 

“I used to think of those suppers, out yonder, and mourn 
for ’em, among my woolly lambs,” Toby chuckled, and 
shot a mischievous look at Julie, “I’ll come back and tell 
you and Mike all about it.” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


39 

Uncle David’s eyes twinkled. “You’ll do nothing of the 
sort. You won’t have to.” 

Julie smiled into the kind old face. “Do you mean it?” 
she asked. 

A moment later Pip slipped an arm through hers and 
was walking her down the steps. “I’ve got something for 
you, Julie,” he confided in his cheerful way; “a sort of 
weddin’ present. Born last night. —You’ll like the little 
beggar. She’ll like you, all right, when she sees you.” 
He gave her a look of naive approval, that ended in a most 
engaging grin. “Her eyes aren’t open yet.” 


3 

“I never saw a lot of people who looked so much alike,” 
observed Julie. 

Lunch was over, and Toby had disappeared. Michael 
stood with his back to the fire, his hands deep in his pock¬ 
ets, a pipe between his teeth. Not a Sunday-morning 
Michael now, in church-going apparel, but dressed in a 
pair of ancient breeches and sagging tweed coat with 
roomy pockets. His eyes, amused and peaceful, had been 
following Julie’s slim, black-clad figure, as she strolled 
about the library, fixing a spray of freesia in the thin old 
flip glass on the desk, stopping before an etching of ducks 
lighting in a marshy pool, pausing to run her eyes lovingly 
along the rows of books in the bookcases, and coming to 
stand at last by the golden-brown wall-flowers in a cop¬ 
per jar, that Naomi had put there on their wedding day 
. . . yesterday. She had stooped swiftly to bury her nose 


40 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


in a fragrant clump of the flowers before her, then 
straightening up had looked at Michael. Her eyes had 
gone on to the portrait of Michael’s father, which hung 
above the fireplace, and then it was that she had given 
forth her opinion on the Cochrane family-likeness. 

Michael’s face broke into a slow smile, that finished 
off in his eyes. —Not because of the words. He knew 
they were true. But for the way they had come. . . . He 
was extraordinarily like the man in the portrait above 
him. His hair was more brindled, but it, like his father’s, 
was parted in the middle, and had the same springy rip¬ 
ple, somehow like that of a little boy. There was the 
same strength of jaw and chin, the rather thin-lipped 
mouth, that being strong was yet humorous. The long, 
gray, Cochrane eyes and finely cut, aquiline nose. Perhaps 
the son Michael was a trifle the bigger of the two. 

He turned now to look up at the painting. “I can’t 
touch him, as a man, Julie,” he said. 

It was a portrait of k man in pink coat and buckskin 
breeches, a copper horn thrust between two buttons of his 
coat. In one hand he held his velvet cap and long-thonged 
whip. Sunlight slanted across his head and shoulders. 
Behind him were the somber, russet branches of an oak 
tree, and between these gleamed patches of wintry sky. 
At his feet, one standing, and one crouching low, were 
two splendid hounds. 

Julie’s eyes had dropped once more to Michael. “Finesse 
and Fable,” he murmured, still turned away from her 
and looking up at the portrait. “Two grand bitches.” 
Then, facing about: “You remember when Father hunted 
his own pack here, don’t you, Julie?” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


4 1 

“Of course I do. I remember you, too, Mike, the day 
I was first blooded, coming up on a blown, brown pony, 
you and the pony covered with mud. You grinned when 
your father handed me the brush, and said, ‘Good for you, 
Judy! I fell into that damn brook.’ I can remember now 
how your father laughed out: ‘Better luck next time, 
Micky!’” 

Michael gave a delighted chuckle. “By Gad! I do 
remember it. What a whizz you are, to have it all so 
pat!” She saw his face grow suddenly sober, and his eyes 
went over and past her to the lift of the hill. “Do you 
know, Julie, there never could have been two happier 
people than my mother and my father. . . . God, how 
they loved each other!” he finished, almost as though 
he had forgotten Julie were there. 

Julie’s heart seemed to have taken up its beating in her 
throat. She saw a flicker of something strange go over 
Michael’s face. He brought his eyes back from the window 
and slope of hill, to look at her. 

“Julie,” he said, “come and sit down for a minute. Will 
you? There is something I would like to say to you.” 

Julie knew a moment of suffocating wonder. Then 
quietly, and without demur, she came. The cocker puppy, 
pushed from her warm nest, jumped promptly back into 
the next best thing—a lap, and Julie absently pulled her 
close, in a curled-up ball. 

Michael sat down on the end of the bench, close to 
Julie. He twisted about to knock the ashes from his pipe, 
then turned to look gravely at her. Her smooth, ruddy 
hair gleamed against the moss-green of the old chair, 
which background made her eyes look like bits of the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


42 

sea, and enhanced the clear pallor of her face. “What is 
it that you want to say to me, Michael?” she asked. “Tell 
me, will you?” 

“Yes—Yes—” He spoke slowly, almost absently. 
Then, as he still looked at her, a smile crept into his eyes. 
“You have a lovely face, Julie,” he said. 

Nothing in the world could have more surprised the 
girl before him. Wanting the whole so badly, she in¬ 
stinctively shied away from the half loaf. 

“Is that all?” she countered, unconsciously provocative 
in the tilt of her head and the glint of teasing amusement 
in her eyes. 

Michael grinned. “No; that’s just the take-off. Got to 
land somewhere—not in a broo\, this time.” 

“Well—” she encouraged, and watched him. 

His eyes dropped to the pipe he held in his hand. “Talk¬ 
ing about Father and Mother—how happy they were to¬ 
gether—made me think of it,” he began ... “I realized, 
suddenly, that I might—that being married to me might 
cut you off from ... all that.” 

A swift shadow clouded Julie’s eyes; but Michael did not 
see it. She looked quickly down to the dog in her lap, 
and Michael went on simply: “If such a thing should 
happen, Julie,—your finding that you loved someone—in 
that way—remember our compact up there at the gate 
yesterday . . . that I’d never stand in your way. Will 
you promise to tell me?” he asked, suddenly lifting his 
eyes to find Julie’s head bent, the slow color flooding up 
into her temples. For a minute, as he waited, he knew 
an odd flash of apprehension. Then impulsively he laid 
his hand on her knee. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


43 

At that, Julie’s head came up. She met his look 
squarely, though a curious expression passed over her face. 
Then she gave him a smile, that held a gleam of mischief. 
“A compact is usually a mutual affair, Michael,” she said. 
“Ours, I think, was so. We each have to keep the knots 
out of our own end of the rope. . . . It’s not a tug of 
war, though, Mike,—all pull, and no giving in. We 
both have our own bit of that to see to.” 

“You’re putting me old, Julie.” Michael leaned for¬ 
ward, and with his hand under her chin, gently tilted 
her face, and smiled down into it. “I trust you, my 
dear—to tell me,” he said, and dropped his hand to stroke 
the dog in her lap. 

“And you, Michael—” she parried, “will remember your 
part of the bargain. . . .” 

“Oh, me,” Michael laughed, “I’d rather have a good 
friend, like you, Jude, than—anything else. If you're 
satisfied, / shall always be.” He was looking at her. “I’m 
happier than I’ve been for years,” he said. And suddenly, 
curiously, he knew that what he said was true. 

He got to his feet and stood looking down at the girl 
and the sleeping puppy. “How about a ride?” he asked. 
“Would you like to go over the hill to the old house, 
and see—how everything is? We have lots of time before 
tea. Naomi expects us there.” 

“I’d love to,” said Julie gratefully, and then, on a note 
of soft laughter: “Pip has a wedding present for me. It’s 
eyes aren’t open yet.” 

“Pip’s inimitable.” Michael grinned. “He must have 
talked old Topsy into littering a day or so before her 
time.” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


44 

“Topsy’s certainly a most obliging lady,” laughed 
Julie. “My wedding present was born last night.” 

“She’s a sister of Fanny—much more up and coming,” 
enlightened Michael. 

“Fanny can have the chance to be ‘a kind old aunt’,” 
said Julie. She got up and put the cocker puppy down in 
her chair. “I’ll be ready in a minute, Mike.” 


4 

He stood in the open doorway, waiting for her. It 
was more like spring, than late January. The sun, having 
done away with most of the snow, had gone behind a trail¬ 
ing sheen of cloud in the high west, slipping out, ever 
and again, to wash with gleams of watery sunshine the 
patches of winter rye on the shoulder of the hill, and to 
catch for a moment, in a misty sparkle, the weathercock 
on the barn. Before him, on the wet grass beyond the 
drive, Fanny and the black-and-white setter played about 
in elephantine coquetry, with a large pale bone for go- 
between. 

. . . “Ought to have put in more rye,” thought Michael, 
and heard footsteps on the stairs. He turned, to see a 
slight boy coming briskly down. 

“My things are a hundred years old, Michael,” Julie 
confided. 

“Such things should be. They’re perfect,” he told her 
with conviction. 

They were. A neat coat of dark gray, over a soft shirt 
with a black tie. Her slim legs, thin at the knees, like a 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


45 

boy’s, were encased in a pair of whipcord breeches, old, 
indeed, but faultlessly cut, and a pair of delicious brown 
field boots. She had pulled down on her head a gray 
felt hat with a black ribbon tied around the crown. The 
only color about her was the surprising green of her eyes, 
and a gleam of hair beneath her hat. Michael’s eyes 
lighted with unconscious approbation. “I told Joe you’d 
ride Solomon,” he said. “Do you mind walking up? I 
usually do,” he explained. 

“You mustn’t treat me like a guest, Mike.” Julie 
sent him a look of whimsical entertainment. “It’s much 
too hard to live up to.” An answering grin went over 
Michael’s face. “You’re right, Julie,” he said. “Do you 
want gumboots? As Marty says,—‘mud’s come’.” Julie 
shook her head. “I don’t want a thing,” she said. 

Outside, Julie sniffed the air. “I can almost smell buds,” 
she observed. “I heard a phoebe in the hemlock beyond 
my window, while I was hauling on my boots.” 

As they passed beneath the spread of the biggest pine, 
a blue jay flashed forth with a screak of derision, that 
seemed to mock at the very idea of a phoebe in the hem¬ 
lock. Michael and Julie walked along the lane (mud 
had come) that climbed to the road. The dogs, thrilled 
to be going somewhere with Michael, had long ago 
reached the gate and disappeared. 

Looking up, Julie caught sight of a buggy drawn by 
a pair of gray horses, moving along the road above. A 
Goddard buggy, and a pair of horses, was no longer a 
common sight, even of a Sunday afternoon, in the country. 
Julie watched the horses being pulled up at the gate. She 
smiled, inwardly, and shot a glance at Michael. He must 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


46 

have been aware of it, for, with a smile, he nodded his 
head. “We’re in for it,” he said, and chuckled. Then 
seeing the whip flicked up in a salute, he gave an an¬ 
swering wave of his arm. “Jane’s heard. I’ll bet a nickel 
on it,” he announced. 

“Rash man!” murmured Julie. 

“You sly dogs!” came the awaited challenge, in a woman’s 
husky voice. They were still twenty yards from the gate. 
“Hurry along up for the Challoners’ blessing.” A woman, 
in a tweed coat and bulky, moss-green muffler, was leaning 
forward, beyond a hatchet-faced man, who drove. Her 
own face was as thin and weathered as a stable boy’s, and 
wrinkled now with a humorous smile. 

“Hello, Jane,” said Julie calmly, as she came on. 

“Can’t have a stable secret that doesn’t wing its way 
to the ears of Jenny Wren,” teased Michael. “Hello, 
Josh.” 

The eyes of the man so addressed twinkled at Julie, over 
Michael’s head. 

“So you’re going to put up with old Cock!” he greeted. 
“You could go further and fare worse.” 

“Hold up, Josh,” laughed his spouse. “Come round here, 
Julie. I want to look at you.” 

Smiling, Julie did as she was bid. She trod gingerly 
round through the mud and slush, and came to stand at 
the far side of the buggy. 

Jane Challoner held out a loosely-gloved hand. Laugh¬ 
ing, Julie put hers in it, and found it powerful. 

“It’s the nicest thing that could have happened,” said 
the husky voice. “Toby told us—back there,” she jerked 
her head to indicate some point over her shoulder. “Popped 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


47 

over a wall, bringing most of it about his brogues. I 
couldn’t have given more of a gasp if the ‘Old Man’, him¬ 
self, had suddenly appeared. I haven’t had two such sur¬ 
prises, at one crack, for many a moon. . . . Nice!” she 
said emphatically, and leaning swiftly, kissed Julie. Then 
turning toward the two men, she broke up a discussion 
on silage and early ploughing, by holding out her hand 
to Michael. “Bring her over soon, Cock,” she said; “I 
loved her before you did.” 

Giving Michael no time to refute this remark, she let 
a pair of pale blue eyes, alight with humor, come to rest 
on the hawk face beside her. “We’d best be going, Josh,” 
she observed, “an’ let the ‘Cocks’ get to their riding.” Josh 
Challoner grinned tolerantly at Julie, and they moved off, 
leaving the Cochranes smiling after the departing buggy, 
with its original and entertaining occupants. 

“Great pair!” said Michael. “Damn shame they never 
had any kids!” he finished, quite innocent of the fact that 
he had proposed—if not, perhaps, for the same reason—an 
analogous lack for his and Julie’s unique partnership. 

A queer expression flickered over Julie’s face, and was 
gone. “Nice people,” she said quietly. 

Michael slipped an arm through hers, and they crossed 
the road, together. 

“That’s a beautiful heifer,” remarked Julie, coming to a 
stand at the corner of the barnyard, where a fawn-colored 
yearling wandered alone, nosing and blowing gentle snorts 
at a pool of melted snow beyond the fence. 

“She should be. But the best of it . . . she really is. 
The little bull calf, of last night’s ‘horning’, is her full 
brother. If he turns out the way he ought, we’ll keep 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


48 

him.” They moved slowly on to the open door o£ the 
barn. 

Julie drew in a deep breath, and her eyes went along 
the line of stalls beyond. Vast, and dim after the outside 
world, the barn stretched off into the delicious depths at 
the end, where the hay went up and up into a dusky half 
light and pigeons cooed in remote tranquillity along the 
beams. An amber-colored cat came stalking to meet them. 
She stopped halfway, and sitting down began with infinite 
care to wash her face. Somewhere in the recesses beyond, 
the stanchion of a cow clanked. The peaceful munch of 
oats went drowsing forward from unseen mangers. A 
pitchfork and broom stood beside a blue-green pail against 
a whitewashed partition of thick old boards. In the 
corner, under a deep-set window, stood a vast grain bin, 
its paint faded with time to a smoky blue. Along the 
top lay another cat, black as coal, and apparently asleep. 
The faintly choky, dusty fragrance of hay, the good smell 
of clean horses and cows, caught at Julie’s throat. It 
brought back carefree, joyous times ... so much that was 
now no more. . . . 

“Like it?” Michael was asking, quietly happy, at her 
elbow. 

“Li\e it?” Julie filled her lungs deeply, in answer, and 
they moved on down the barn toward a space of three box 
stalls. 

A small bandy-legged man, with a tan collie at his heels, 
was coming to meet them. It was old Joe. Before the 
first box stall Julie spied Michael’s retriever, sitting bolt 
upright, quivering with expectancy. The setter was no¬ 
where to be seen. Julie held out her hand to the little 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


49 

man before her. A horny palm met hers, in an awkward, 
slimsy shake. But the man’s ruddy, hard-bitten face shone 
with ingenuous pleasure. 

“It’s a glad day for old Joe, Miss Julie, to be calling ye 
Mrs. Michael,” he said simply; “an’ to think ye’ll be here 
ever an’ always.” 

“Thank you, Joe,” Julie answered gravely. “You were 
always a good friend of mine.” She smiled, with a sudden 
twinkle of mischievous reminiscence. “Do you remember 
how beautifully you fibbed for me the day I broke the shaft 
of the old red breaking-cart?” 

Joe gave a warming chuckle and shot a look at Michael. 
“ ’Twas a raggety flick o’ white paper the wind whipped 
in the pony’s face . . . that done it,” he offered, with a 
splendid slow wink at his master. 

“You haven’t forgotten your lines, Joe,” laughed Julie 
delightedly, forgetful of the present, in the impish doings of 
her past. 

Michael turned and opened the door of the box at his 
elbow. “Got on Mrs. Michael’s saddle?” he asked, rub¬ 
bing gently at the satin-soft nose thrust out to him. “Come 
on, old man,” he coaxed, as he unfastened the snap-hooks 
from either side of the bridle and led the pony out to where 
Julie waited. 

Joe had slipped into the next box and was leading out 
Michael’s temperamental brown pony, “The Djinn”,—the 
most enterprising pony for bucking when the mood was 
upon him, and the most engagingly, innocently mild 
when it was not. 

Julie rubbed Solomon’s bony forehead and ran her 
hand down his neck. Then, taking up the single snaffle, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5 ° 

she climbed agilely up, and, with a sigh of happiness, 
settled into her old saddle. 

As Solomon trod sedately, with subdued clump of hoofs, 
toward the open door, Julie heard slight skirmishings 
behind, and a short-lived clatter of hoofs on the hollow¬ 
sounding floor. Then she was in the squelching yard, 
and an amused Michael, on a brown back suspiciously 
prone to hump, was pulling up the nose of The Djinn. 
“No you don’t!” he warned. Sidling, with much swish¬ 
ing of a thin, ratted tail, but without a buck, Michael got 
the pony through the yard, and, side by side, he and Julie 
turned into the lane that ran past the barns, up through the 
hemlocks, to the crown of the hill, and over. 

They didn’t go, after all, to the old house tucked away 
in its orchard on the farther slope. For, on the top of 
the hill, where the road came out of the woods on to a 
clear sweep of pasture land that dropped to a twist of 
brook, Julie sent a wistful glance to the house below, 
crouching with cold, smokeless chimneys in the shelter of 
a wide-spreading hemlock, and then said simply: “I don’t 
think I’ll go there to-day, Mike.” 

“We’ll go round by the place in the brook we used 
to dam,” Michael’s eyes were fastened on the crest of a 
distant hill, “then along beside the river, to fetch up at 
Naomi’s. It’s four o’clock now,” he finished ingeniously, 
still without looking at the girl on the gray pony. 

“Michael, Michael,” thought that girl, “how beautifully 
kind you are, my dear. I love you for that, too.” But 
looking at him, she only said, “And there’s Pip’s small 
blind bundle of a wedding present waiting. . . .” 

Michael turned laughing eyes upon his wife. “Pippin 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5i 

will be the little beggar’s name,” he said. Then swinging 
their ponies to the right, they both cantered over the field, 
along the ridge of the hill. At the edge of a wood they 
pulled to a walk, and facing the trailing clouds that swept 
across the westering sun, dropped down through patches 
of juniper and low cedar, to cross the old-time spot in the 
brook, and so came to the river road. Snow still lay in 
the lee of its tumbled stonewall. With a whirr, five 
pheasants thundered up. The Djinn shied as though he 
had never seen a bird before, and they were plunged sud¬ 
denly into the colder gloom of hemlocks . . . the ever¬ 
lasting whisper of their somber branches. 


5 

Julie had somehow forgotten how low the ceiling of the 
old room was ... or perhaps it was because so many big 
men were wandering about under it. It was all so just 
right: the mellow, bumpy plaster of the walls, the dim, 
smoky beams, and the splendid fireplace; the wink and 
gleam of copper, the books, the faded old materials, soft 
and lovely of color, and flowers, of course—always, for 
Naomi. The Challoners were there, and Johnny Dick. 
She and Michael had been welcomed with a storm of 
greeting, that was so spontaneous and friendly that it had 
all seemed natural and unembarrassing. The big angular 
figure of Ambrose Sheridan, in the act of bending to cope 
with a rolling log on the hearth, wheeled about and strode 
across to Julie. A twinkle behind his steel-rimmed spec¬ 
tacles, and the words, “Take off your hat, Mrs. Michael,” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5 2 

being his only warnings, he had swept her up in a brotherly 
hug and kissed her squarely on the mouth. 

“Always wanted to do that, myself,” announced Johnny 
Dick to Naomi, who was near by. Then: “Here’s lookin’ 
at you, Julie!” he called, and he tipped up a tall glass he 
had in his hand (it was innocuously filled with milk), 
quaffed the contents at a gulp and flicked the glass over 
his shoulder on to the hearth, where it fell with a splendid 
crash. An old beagle leaped ponderously from a drowse, 
and fled, with down-clamped tail, for the door, and safety. 

“Look here, you Johnny,” laughed Naomi, “do you 
know that ends our family of tall glasses?” Martin was 
on his knees, gingerly picking up the pieces. He looked 
up at his mother with an ill-concealed twinkle. “Just what 
I needed,” he confided, “to finish doin’ something.” 

“It’s a poor smash that doesn’t bring someone a few 
lucky pieces,” observed the irrepressible Johnny. 

“You can’t take her yet, o’ course,” Pip was whispering 
in Julie’s ear; “but you got to see her, just the same— 
afterwards. Don’t forget.” 

“I’m going to call her Pippin,” Julie turned to tell him. 
“Michael thought of it.” 

“Mike’s a dabster at naming things,” his nephew re¬ 
torted, with an appreciative grin. 

At that moment Toby came in through a doorway at 
the end of the room, beyond the group about the fire¬ 
place. He bore a tray, apparently heaped with muffins 
and stacks of cookies. “ ’ll this do you?” he asked, of the 
room at large, then over his shoulder to Tim, “Put down 
that kettle o’ water, kid, before you fill your shoes with it.” 

“I haven’t spilled very much,” was the mild answer. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


53 

“We’ve all had some, Julie dear.” Naomi lifted her 
head with a fleeting glance of explanation. “They came 
in from a paper chase—on foot, as hungry as though they 
hadn’t stowed away a round of beef a few hours ago.” 
She shrugged, with a gesture of amused tolerance. “Sit 
down Julie.” Then, in the act of lifting the kettle, her 
eyes were caught by a gleam of metal and tangle of leather 
straps draped over the back of the chair Julie had chosen. 
“Take that bridle out of here, someone. Who put it 
there?” She raised her eyebrows and mutely shook her 
head. 

Johnny Dick reached a long arm and slid the bridle 
clinking over the back of the chair. “Toby said to bring 
it along an’ he’d mend it for me,” he explained, with a 
grin. 

“Well, it isn’t likely to get mended on the back of that 
chair,” answered Naomi tranquilly. “Where’s the horse 
that belongs in it—wandering about the house?” 
Micky, reaching for a cookie that had rolled under the 
table, gave an explosive snort of laughter, somewhat muf¬ 
fled, fortunately, by the position of his head in relation to 
the floor. “Come on up into the daylight, Micky,” said 
his mother calmly, “and pass some muffins to Julie. . . . 
The toe of your muddy boot is pinning my best slipper 
to the floor.” With an elephantine and scrouging with¬ 
drawal, Micky humped out stern foremost; and turning 
about, still on his knees, good-naturedly proceeded to do 
as he was bid. 

“Did The Djinn buck much?” he asked. “He always 
does, goin’ down hill.” Smiling, Julie shook her head. 

What a deliciously inconsequent and original lot they 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


54 

were, these men folk of Naomi’s,—Naomi, herself. A sort 
of beautifully happy, amused content seemed to radiate 
from her wherever she was, thought Julie. —Was it just 
Naomi? or was it what happened when you loved a man 
—and he loved you . . . ? Unconsciously her eyes sought 
out Michael, to find his broad shoulders dark against a 
western window. He was deep in conversation with Josh 
Challoner, his hand resting naturally upon Jane’s thin 
shoulder as he talked to her husband. 

“Come, Mike, get your tea!” called Naomi, at that mo¬ 
ment. 

Instantly, as a boy would, he turned, and, with a parting 
shot, came over to where Julie sat. He dropped down on 
to the arm of her big leather chair, and sitting sidewise, 
propped up by one long leg, swung the other and drolly 
awaited his tea from the ministering hands of his sister. 

“Had a nice day, children?” she asked, her eyes bent 
on the sugar-bowl as she reached for a piece to put into 
Michael’s cup. 

“Perfect!” said the latter, with surprising conviction. 
Julie could never seem to help her heart doing queer 
choky things in her throat when Michael was near her. 
It was fluttering about now in a way that suddenly made 
her angry. It couldn’t do things like that, right under 
everyone’s nose. It shouldn’t! She reached for the tea¬ 
cup on its way to Michael, and handed it on to him. “We 
rode over the farm hill and along the river,” she told 
Naomi. “The sky was all misty gleams of trailing cloud, 
and the river, under the hemlocks, was shining and dark, 
at the same time.” 

“Three cock pheasants, with two hens in tow, rocketed 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


55 

up out of that clump of juniper where the wall’s tum¬ 
bling down,” put in Michael. 

“Woods are full of ’em, this year,” offered Micky at 
Julie’s elbow. “There’s a funny whitish-lookin’ hen about. 
Have you seen her?” 

Michael swung a long leg, and, between gulps of burn¬ 
ing hot tea, threw a sly question at Johnny Dick: “What’s 
happening in the market, Mr. Ticker?” 

A groan came from Johnny. 

Then Jane’s husky voice: “Yes, tell us.” Josh went on 
playing a game, at the window, with little, eager Martin. 
But he was listening. What he didn’t know about the 
fluctuations of that cruelly tormenting institution, the 
market—was not so very much. Johnny’s version of it 
would be amusing. 

“It’s dropped. I thought the Bulls were going to take 
it for a ride,” came the words mournfully, and Johnny’s 
shoulders went earwards. “I’m broke—honest-to-God 
broke.” 

“At last? Really, Johnny?” asked Toby, quite soberly. 

“Laugh while you may, young fellar!” was the retort. 
“But if that’s the only thing you do, those old woolly 
sheep of yours, off yonder, won’t be cornin’ home so duti¬ 
fully waggin’ their tails behind ’em . . . when you get 
back there again. They won’t be there to wag—anything. 
They’ll have gone—like every other thing in this pernick- 
erty old world—to the blazes!” 

“As bad as that?” said Toby meekly. 

“You’ve hit the nail, Johnny Dick,” put in Jane Chal- 
loner. “This old spinning top of a world has been sleep¬ 
ing at it for years. The first wobble came in the war . . . 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5 6 

caught itself, spun on . . . wobbled again. Now, just 
like any other top, it’s running wild before it wobbles and 
stops—spinning.” With a flicker of amusement in .her 
pale eyes Jane subsided and lighted a cigarette. 

“Good goin’!” said her husband, and turned back for 
a play. 

“Oh now, Jane—” protested Naomi. “The world’s not 
so bad, or so different. There’s nothing new, in itself, 
in anything that’s happening. More talk—brazen, perhaps 
. . . even bald, but—” She shrugged her shoulders. 
“There’s lots of goodness and kindness left,—and decent, 
clean people, doing clean, decent things. . . .” 

“I think Naomi’s right,” defended Julie. Michael 
screwed round, with his arm lightly touching her shoul¬ 
der. She knew he was looking down at her. She felt 
it. . . . “But one thing seems, to me, not to be just 
the same—” She rested her head against the back of the 
chair, and her eyes were strangely luminous beneath the 
darkness of her lashes as she looked across at Naomi. 
—“When we were little, and later, not little, but pretty 
young, we had a certain religion. Not one that was 
prim or prudish ... or that we necessarily talked about. 
. . . But it was there,—a faith in something bigger 
than we—God, if you will. ... We still have that 
faith,” she went on quietly, convincingly, “something 
to turn to—something bigger than we. But—so many 
of the generation younger seem to have lost all that. 
Lost their hold on—the only thing you can hold on to. 
They don’t admit, or appear to need, anything—bigger 
than they.” 

There was a moment’s hush; then Michael spoke: 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


57 

“You are right, I think, Julie—beautifully right— ‘Some¬ 
thing bigger than we’—” he quoted slowly. 

Naomi nodded, her eyes thoughtful. “Yes, she’s right.” 

Toby had turned his back upon them all, and was star¬ 
ing into the fire. He wondered suddenly—with all his 
brave show of casual fooling—how he was going to stand 
being so near to Julie. God! He shivered. How allur¬ 
ing she was . . . and how utterly unconscious of it. . . . 
She was fearless, too. Look at her now. He couldn’t have 
said that. And it was true. He was a bit like that, 
himself. . . . 

She was talking again. He listened hungrily to the 
delicious throaty voice. She was answering some idea 
Jane had put forward, and that he had not caught. . . . 
“It’s a curious thing, though, Jane,” he heard her say, “and 
a very telling one, to see for what this country, en masse, 
will pay the highest price. A moving-picture star would 
sniff at the salary for a wee\ that this country gives to its 
President for a year . A prize fighter, or a star batter on 
a professional baseball team, would laugh in the public’s 
face at the thought of a salary such as we so blandly offer 
to a judge in our Supreme Court. Let the President skin 
along as best he can, on $75,000 a year! Let the judges 
who interpret our laws, the ministers and professors and 
doctors, who care for the souls, form the thoughts and 
administer to the bodies of America of to-morrow, make 
the best of a sorry bargain ... so that the children of 
to-day, by the movies and the prize ring, the smuggled 
goods of the bootlegger . . . and speed—speed, above all, 
and at any cost—may be entertained, and feed their selfish, 
pleasure-loving bodies!” 


58 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

“Julie—Julie—Julie—! when do you think out all this?” 
asked Naomi, amazed. 

“Often,” said Julie simply. “I believe it, Naomi.” 

“And the best of it is, she’s not afraid, or ashamed, 
to say it,” put in Jane Challoner with frank admiration. 

Julie lay back, quietly smoking a cigarette, her eyes 
gone off through the western window beyond Naomi. She 
was thinking, far from them all, suddenly, of her father. 
He had been unafraid. . . . 

“Here you are,” said a voice at her elbow, and Pip, 
silently come, bent to show her something. Julie found 
herself looking down at a tiny blind ball of brown fur 
curled up in Pip’s nice careful hands. 

“Oh Pip—” she said, and for the queer tightness in her 
throat could say no more. 


Chapter Three 


T 

O F all Michael’s household the member who paid 
most marked attention to Julie was Michael’s 
black cocker puppy, Tess. (Anything less like 
her namesake of the D’Urbervilles, than the little lady in 
question, would be hard to imagine; but it had been Pip’s 
turn to produce a name for this last addition to the dog 
family, and he had, at the moment, been wrestling 
through this particular book—for school. Thus the short 
tag, for a short-legged little dog person.) 

From the moment of her finding herself in Julie’s lap, 
all unexpectedly, on their arrival in Michael’s car, after 
they had been married, Tess had taken the owner of that 
lap unto herself. It fooled with her and scratched her in 
the right places, and had a new kind of lap, where one 
could stay comfortably curled up without suddenly, in the 
middle of a nap, slipping disturbingly through. She 
followed Julie like a shadow; and on the second night 


59 


6o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


flagrantly deserted her blanket in the corner of Michael’s 
room. ... As Julie was getting ready for bed, the door 
she thought was safely shut, brushed slowly open. A black 
nose was thrust in, followed by a small black body, that 
came wagging its way toward her, sidewise, like a crab, 
in an ecstatic curve tipped by a flicking, stumpy tail. 

“Why Tess,” said Julie, turned half about at her dress¬ 
ing table. With a bound the puppy was in her lap, and 
had given a little darting lick to the tip of Julie’s nose. 
From that moment, Tess was Julie’s dog. 

For the rest, the household took her in with cheerful 
matter-of-course . . . glad to have her there, as if she had 
been a sister come back to take up the threads that a 
woman in a household inevitably takes unto herself. It 
was as though she had always been there. The Tooths, 
Sam and Hannah, were eager for her help, and had early 
and ingenuously sought it. 

On Monday, when Julie went into the kitchen to say 
good morning and thank Hannah for all she had done, the 
delighted old woman fairly beamed, as she led her to a 
rocking-chair beside the window filled with geraniums, 
where the canary chirped and pecked in his cage above. 

“It’s where Miss Naomi sat, and her dear mother before 
her, God rest her soul! when seein’ to the orderin’, of a 
mornin’. . . . God be praised!” she said fervently, “to 
see it filled, this minyit, with Mr. Michael’s wife.” And 
Julie understood. Smiling with a certain wistfulness up 
at the friendly face, she took, perforce, the unsought reins 
thus thrust into her capable hands. The reins of her 
husband’s house. 

“A house without a woman in it is a woeful spot, how- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


61 


ever you try to lighten it,” Hannah confided. “Men and 
dogs is wonderful careless of mud and such. And Sam 
says ye’ve put a lightness and a brightness over all, in 
one short day. Sam and me was thinkin’ if so be we 
could fix up Miss Naomi’s room for two, ye’d take good 
comfort. Sure, that wee small room of Mr. Michael’s 
could make no space in the quare parcel o’ guns and 
huntin’ things he have ransacked to himself in his man’s 
way.” Reaching suddenly to save a bit of cuttlefish from 
falling through the wire of the canary’s cage, Hannah 
failed to see the slow flood of color mounting in Julie’s 
face. “What a grand day it will be for us whin Mr. 
Michael has a son!” she observed in naive conclusion to 
her train of thought. “He’s had a lonesome length o’ 
years, and growd used to goin’ his lonesome, man’s ways,” 
she explained to the mute girl who leaned to caress the 
head of the puppy pressed close to her knees. “But ye’ll 
soon learn him others,” she went on with simple con¬ 
fidence, “an’ bless ye for it, Miss Julie. Sam an’ me loves 
Mr. Michael like as he was the child we never had.” 

Julie raised her eyes, to find that Hannah had taken off 
her spectacles and was fumbling at them with her apron. 
Her heart filled with despair at the known short-comings 
of their life together-to-be—hers and Michael’s—a surge 
of longing swept over her at the old woman’s words. She 
got to her feet and went to Hannah. With rare tender¬ 
ness she laid her arm about the faithful creature. . . . 
Moved by this new version of Michael’s life, out of her 
suppressed love for him, she spoke simply and in perfect 
faith. ‘Til try to make him happy,” she said a little un¬ 
steadily. And, leaving Hannah smiling through her tears 


62 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


at her friend the canary, she went away, wholly forgetting 
why she had been led to that rocking-chair beside the 
pots of pink and white geraniums. 

But Hannah, too, had forgotten. She was seeing a boy- 
child with Mr. Michael’s gray eyes and crisp, shining hair, 
as she had seen him, long ago. Her thwarted mother love 
was satisfied with this child of her own brain . . . Mr. 
Michael’s little son-to-be. 

Something fell with a tiny smack onto the floor at 
Hannah’s feet. She came back abruptly to her surround¬ 
ings. With a happy sigh, she bent and picked up the piece 
of cuttlefish. 


2 

Up in the room that had been Naomi’s, Julie stood by 
the window looking down over the hill to the river. 
Propped against a leg of the old wing chair at the side 
of the fireplace, with her hind legs sprawled sidewise in 
the limp fashion of cockers, sat Tess. A patch of watery 
sunshine slanted across her small person, and on along 
the floor. It faded out, momentarily dimming the room. 
With her eyes fastened hopefully on Julie’s back, Tess 
waited. . . . 

A boisterous wind swept up from the river, and caught 
at the branches of the hemlock by the corner of the house. 
Julie could hear the swish of it, as the boughs sprang up¬ 
wards; and saw the sheen of needles, in a short-lived burst 
of sunlight. Then blurred shadows chased up over the 
hill, and once more dimmed the earth. 

The interlude of Saturday and Sunday now over and, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


63 

as it were, her wedding a thing of the past, standing there 
on that everyday Monday morning, Julie knew a sharp 
moment of blankness, an access of bleak hopelessness. A 
thinking human being, with plenty of courage, she was 
faced suddenly with the future. Putting aside the jumble 
of thoughts and troubling doubts that had been seething, 
only half suppressed, through her mind, she pulled her¬ 
self together and squarely met the present. ... In a mo¬ 
ment of madness, she had married Michael. For better, 
for worse, she was now Michael’s wife. If in name only, 
that she had known before . . . and accepted. She had 
chosen with open eyes. The only blame lay with her. 
She knew now how heavy a blame that was. . . . Because 
of her love for Michael, which should have made it im¬ 
possible unless he, too, cared for her . . . like a drowning 
man clutching at a straw, she had grasped a quarter loaf 
. . . forgetting that it might also become such for Michael. 
He had offered her, in good faith, and with a fine sim¬ 
plicity, the honor of his name. . . . And she had taken 
it . . . with God knows what hopes. 

Why had he done this thing? she asked herself now. 
Was it, in some altruistic way, to protect her? If only 
her father were there! Ah—but if he had not died, this 
would never have been. . . . Then a sickening thought 
caught her,—a sharp thrust of fear. Could it be—that 
Michael had had to help her father?—that he had found 
how very little there was for her now? The hot blood 
flooded up in her face. It couldn't be that. —God! . . . 

. . . How like him it would be. And how could she 
ask him such a thing . . . now? What must Toby think? 
Thank God he had got over caring for her. How im- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


64 

possible a situation if he had not! . . . Michael was so 
frankly delighted to have him back. He had told her so, 
and said that Toby would stay there until the spring. 

Suddenly, as a gleam of reason in the confusion of her 
mind flashed the thought of her compact with Michael 
. . . not to stand in each other’s way. . . . She must not 
allow things to become distorted. That sort of thing did 
no one any good. She would keep to her bargain. She 
need never stand in Michael’s way. . . . She would play 
the game. As long as he was happy at his part in that 
game, she would have to trust him, and “play fair,” as he 
was doing. There she would leave it. . . . And then, her 
eyes focussing on the house tucked away in a fold of the 
hill, with a rush of thankfulness she remembered Naomi. 
She caught the glint of the old weathercock, as it spun 
about in the wind that flattened out, with a swoop, the 
smoke rising from the end chimney. In the yard behind, 
she saw a flutter of blue—boys’ shirts, flapping on the line. 
Simple, homely things—stable and sure, going steadily 
forward. Naomi, with her lovely face and laughing eyes, 
her sure hands and big way of looking at things, carrying 
on. She, too, would do her best. She swung about and 

saw Tess crouching by the old chair. A rueful smile 

crept into her eyes: “Come on, little lady,” she said. “No 
more of this. We’ll trot over the hill to the house by the 
brook. You’ve never been there, you know,” she told 
the happily wriggling puppy, as she pulled on a soft fur 
cap and got down a leather coat. “It’s nice there, Tess 

. . . but you mustn’t go for the rabbits in the orchard.” 

She laughed down at the puppy. “Remember!” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


6 5 


3 

Michael walked Solomon along the lower road by the 
river, where yesterday he and Julie had gone. He was 
on his way to the ten-acre field on the other side of the 
river, where they were putting down dressing. He could 
hear the creak of a cart now, and the plod of hoofs on the 
planks of the narrow bridge beyond the bend. Solomon, 
going sleepily, the reins lying on his neck, fumbled a foot 
in a rut that had frozen over night, then trod on through 
the tinkling of thin ice, where yesterday a puddle had 
been. Twenty yards ahead, in the middle of the road, 
Jinny, the lemon-and-white setter, had come to a point. 
Michael pulled up and got ofif. The pony, nothing loath, 
stood where he was, his head thrust down, sniffing at the 
ruts. Michael, with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, 
walked quietly up on the pointing setter. She had begun 
now, half crouching, to move stealthily forward, on a slant, 
toward a clump of junipers. Once more she froze into 
a perfect point, and held it. Slowly Michael passed her. 
He had not gone three yards, when, with a thundering 
whirr, two cock pheasants got up, followed by a hen, and, 
tipping to avoid the branches of a pine tree, sailed out 
over the river. Michael twisted about to watch the dog. 
Would she hold the point? “Gad, that’s good, for a 
puppy!” he whispered. Then: “All right, Jinny.” The 
young setter came up to him. 

Hoofs were jogging toward him, horse and rider hidden 
by the curve in the road. Michael heard the clink of 


66 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


breaking ice. Looking up, he saw that it was Jane Chal- 
loner, on the wicked ratty pony which she rode on every 
occasion with the amused delight Jane reserved for wicked 
ratty ponies. Of which ilk there seemed a perennial sup- 
ply. 

“Mornin’, Jane!” he called. “Wait till I get Solomon 
out of the way of that she-devil’s heels. —What you 
up to?” Jane pulled up, much to the flighty one’s disgust, 
as shown by the flattened ears and fidgety sidling. “Don’t 
be an ass, Vix,” she said, huskily nonchalant, (Michael 
was hauling Solomon out of the way), and almost in the 
same breath, “Working. . . . Just the way you are, Mike.” 
Her face crinkled in a grin, which Michael answered in 
kind, no whit disturbed. “Did you see the point the puppy 
made?” he asked. “I did not,” was the answer. Then 
Jane laughed. ... “I don’t believe you have a thought 
in that brindled head of yours but dogs and horses and 
top-dressin’. . . . Books thrown in,” she conceded tardily. 

“No—” he said, slowly mocking, “not one. The third 
item comes first, at the moment. I’m goin’ over the river 
now to see ’em at it.” 

“Your old ten-acre field, I suppose—!” 

“You’ve missed your vocation, Jane,” observed Michael 
mildly. “You ought to be dressed like a gypsy, selling 
baskets and asking—” (he let his voice slide into an obse¬ 
quious whine) “Want your palm read, lady?” Then, 
drawing Solomon well up at the side: “Pass, woman, on 
your busy way—and keep that vixen’s heels out of my 
face.” 

“Where’s Julie?” Jane asked with a chuckle, and without 
making a move. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


67 

“I don’t know,” said Michael simply, pulling up the 
head of a pony asking for trouble, and looking at Jane 
caught a quizzical glint in her pale eyes. “Should I?” 

Jane let her glance rest on him while a slow, incredulous 
smile broke over her face. “You’re incorrigible, Mike!” 
she said at last, and shrugging thin shoulders, she grimaced 
humorously down on him. “Most men, I think, would 
know a little thing like that, two days after they were 
married.” . . . 

Michael kept his eyes upon her, without a flicker of 
answering fun. “Julie’s not like that,” he said. “We—” 
and there he stopped. . . . 

“Like what?” Jane snapped him up, disregarding the 
unfinished “we—”, “We’re all alike . . . when it comes 
to that. ... You can’t take any of us too much for 
granted. . . . The poorest of us is like to fool you, if you 
do.” 

“Poor Josh!” murmured Michael in droll commisera¬ 
tion. . . . With flattened ears, and tail swishing, the 
mare trod warily as a cat along the frozen ruts, passing 
Michael. 

“Poisonous little rat!” he taunted. “I’ll send her a red 
ribbon to pin in her tail feathers—for her next birthday 
present.” 

With perfect equanimity, the thin figure in breeches 
followed the antics of the sidling mare, adroitly keeping 
down a pair of feather-light heels. As they went, Jane 
sent Michael an inimitable glance over her shoulder. 
“Take Julie out with you, Micky. She might like top¬ 
dressing. Ask her, anyway,” was her parting shot. 

Michael got on Solomon and walked the pony toward 


68 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


the bridge—and the ten-acre field. The wind was rising, 
with a soughing swish in the big hemlocks overhead . . . 
a sudden gust, from over the river, blew a spit of hail 
in his face. He turned up his collar absently, his mind 
on the words Jane had flung him across her shoulder. 
Why hadn’t he asked Julie? Not because he hadn’t 
thought of it, as Jane had implied. He had thought of it, 
and then— It was because he didn’t want her to feel 
she had to go messing about on the farm unless she wanted 
to. . . . Had he taken things for granted? Taken Julie 
for granted ? . . . But he didn’t pretend to know anything 
about women . . . except Naomi—and Jane . . . and, he 
had supposed—Julie. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be quite 
so simple as he had thought. . . . And then he knew, for 
the first time, that he hadn’t really thought, at all . . . 
except to hope that Julie would be happy. And suddenly 
there rose before him the picture of Julie’s face as she had 
sat that morning pouring out his coffee,—her head tilted, 
her eyes smiling a question at him from under her dark 
lashes. So enchanting, so amazingly adequate, and yet, as 
he remembered her now—somehow aloof. She’s my wife, 
he thought with quick wonder, and I don’t really know 
a bit about her! With a thrust of pleasurable surprise, 
he spoke aloud to the ears of old Solomon. “I’d like to 
know—” he said. 

And then, having come to the bridge, being Michael, 
he turned to the work at hand; as it were, pushing some¬ 
thing pleasant into the back of his mind. He jogged 
Solomon across the planks of the narrow bridge and rode 
out into the field on the other side . . . simply Michael 
Cochrane, keen head of a big working farm. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


69 


4 

On foot, Toby had accompanied Michael and Solomon 
part of the way up the hill behind the barns. Where 
a path struck off eastward, through the woods, he had 
stopped. Standing on a hump of frozen earth and matted 
leaves, he laid a hand on Solomon’s spare gray withers. 
“The stand of pines on the hillside, behind Byrd’s old 
house?” he questioned. 

“Yes,” said Michael. “Put your mark on the lads you 
think ought to go.” Michael sent him a look, quizzical, 
amused. “You still love trees, Tobe?” 

The eyes of the latter, alert, alive, had gone past his 
brother’s figure, on Solomon, into the depths of the 
hemlocks beyond ... he nodded, half absently. “Trees,” 
he murmured. Then, with a sudden grin, he looked up at 
Michael. “Yep,” he said, “I like ’em . . . Well,” he flicked 
a hand along Solomon’s quarters, “I’ll be seeing you,” and 
turning, he left them. 

. . . Lord, how many times he had come this way, to 
Julie’s house! Five years was a long time. Long enough 
for people to die . . . and get married. . . . But what was 
the use of getting bitter about it. If he could only un¬ 
derstand it! ... Why had Julie married Michael—if she 
didn’t love him? It was as clear as day why old Mike 
had married Julie. Even if he were a bit of still water— 
and Toby knew he was. Michael wasn’t so deep that 
he, Toby, hadn’t been able to see bottom. Altruistic 
fellar, Mike! He had a lot of courage, too. —How in 
God’s name, though, he could have Julie for his wife, and 


7 o MICHAEL’S WIFE 

not love her, was to him utterly incredible. —But there 
it was. . . . And Julie, herself? What went on in that 
sleek head, with its flame of hair? What, behind those 
long eyes of hers, that could be so candid, and, again, so 
withdrawn? . . . He never had pretended to make Julie 
out. But, Lord, how he had wanted to—(his face flushed 
hotly at the admission) how he wanted to now! . . . Her 
very friendliness, so spontaneous and easy, given so 
frankly, and with such trust to him now . . . while its 
very simplicity put him miles away . . . hurt unspeak¬ 
ably. . . . He bit hard on the stem of a pipe he had for¬ 
gotten to fill; then took it out of his mouth and put it away 
in a pocket. —The gay inconsequence of the two of them! 
Just as if—I don’t know, he thought miserably. If they 
were satisfied, why the devil should he fuss, or jib at the 
uniqueness of the situation? . . . Then, with a swift re¬ 
version: Good God! he was human. He loved her as he 
never dreamed of loving her before—and she was Mike’s 
wife. If she loved Michael! he thought contradictorily, it 
wouldn’t, somehow, be so damned hard to swallow—but 
—she might just as well have been his wife . . . who did 
love her. . . . What a wretched mess he was caught up 
into. He owed Michael—everything. Michael had asked 
him, in all good faith, little knowing the torment he thrust 
upon him so innocently—to stay at Windyhill. How could 
he go? He couldn’t. He’d just stick it, somehow—until 
the spring. But he’d got to keep a tight rein . . . damn 
well keep his fingers out of the pie that had been made 
while he was away. “Thank God Mike never knew why 
I went away,” he thought fervently. “There’s that to 
hang on to.” ... He was suddenly brought to a sense 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


7 1 

of his surroundings by stubbing the toe of his heavy 
brogue on a rock sticking up in the needle-covered path. 
The hobnails on the sole slithered with a grinding rasp 
over the rough surface. He laughed ruefully. “Blind 
old fool!” he muttered. “Ought to know that bit of rock 
. . . used to bump my chin on it when I was no bigger’n 
a hop-toad.” 

He had reached the top of the hill. Standing under the 
branches of a tall hemlock, he looked across a wide, open 
glade. Alone in their glory in the open space stood three 
enormous silver beeches. High over them a sweep of 
windy sky. “God, they’re lovely,” he whispered. 

Profoundly still, he stood there looking out on the smooth 
silver gray of the great trunks . . . the maze of fine, 
gray branches against the darkness of the pines beyond. 

A lover of trees since a boy, with now a real and ex¬ 
tensive knowledge of forestry, Toby had lost his heart 
long ago to beeches. Of all trees, his first and last love was 
the silver beech. And this spot, in the wide world, he 
loved the most. This hushed, hidden glade on the top 
of a hill, where three great beeches grew. . . . Strangely 
enough, the picture he held in his mind of these three big 
trees was always this,—their maze of bare branches against 
the darkness of the pines,—never the young feathery green 
of them in the spring. As every man has, in his mind, 
some place of safety and happiness to cling to—this was 
Toby Cochrane’s. ... He stood now, absolutely quiet, 
drinking it in . . . for the five years behind him—gazing 
at the actual trees, matching them limb for limb, twist and 
seam and bole—gnarled root and slope of ground beneath 
—to the vision he had carried in his heart. At last he 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


72 

gave a low, happy laugh. “You’ve kept the faith, gray 
ladies!” he said, and walked slowly forth into the open— 
straight up to the biggest of the trees. Ducking under a 
sweeping bough, he laid a hand on the trunk. Somewhere 
high up among the branches a squirrel chattered rebuke. 
“All right!” said Toby whimsically, “I won’t hurt her,” 
and passing out on the farther side, he picked up the 
twist of path that went down among the pines to the 
orchard behind Julie’s house. 

For an hour, then, with understanding, and extreme 
care, he looked over the trees as Michael had asked him 
to do—for the ones that must go. He marked, with a 
piece of red cloth, more than a dozen tall pines, for the 
axe. Then emerging at the lower end of the wood, he 
went on through the orchard at the foot of the hill, and 
came to the old weathered house by the brook. With 
hardly a glance at the house, he walked on past some tall 
lilac bushes, ducked under the crooked branch of a hem¬ 
lock, and found himself on the knoll over the brook. 
For a minute he stood there looking absently down. The 
ice went out a little way from the bank on his side. Be¬ 
neath it the water made a hollow gurgling sound. A 
jay flew screaming out of the hemlock and darted, in a 
flash of blue, over Toby’s head. But with his mind in a 
curious blank acquiescence of the world about, without 
any conscious thought, he stood for a space in that familiar 
spot, neither seeing nor hearing. ... At last a chickadee 
lighted on a spray of juniper close by the brook. The 
cheerful “dee-dee-dee” brought Toby back to earth. He 
smiled, because he loved chickadees, and then his eyes fol- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


73 

lowed the sudden flight of the little black-capped bird 
over the field and hill beyond. 

To the right of the knoll on which he stood, two old 
planks, covered with lichen, crossed the brook, to a path 
which climbed, deep bitten, athwart the shoulder of the 
hill. A low, juniper-covered hill against the eastern sky. 
Over that hill one might take a short cut to the town below. 
. . . Toby had the sudden fancy to climb the hill. He was 
halfway across the foot-bridge when he heard his name 
called, and turning saw Julie. She stood under the hem¬ 
lock, grasping a low-swung branch. The wind had caught 
a strand of coppery hair from beneath her black fur cap, 
and had whipped a faint color into her cheeks. Her eyes 
were smiling. 

She looked down to where, at her feet, Tess crouched 
with her tongue hanging out. “It’s pretty far for us,” she 
explained, “but we would come . . . and here we are.” 

Lord, how lovely she was! . . . and how puzzling, 
thought Toby in a flash of exasperation, even as he 
laughed down rather ruefully at the puppy in question. 

“Where are you off to, Toby?” asked Julie. 

Toby hunched a pair of tweed shoulders. “Nowhere 
special. What can I do?” 

“Not a thing,” she answered simply. And then added 
quietly: “I—I’m just going into the house.” She turned 
slowly away . . . then looked back to ask, “Do you want 
to come, Toby?” 

For some curious reason that he could not explain, Toby 
felt suddenly sorry for Julie. A new sensation was mixed 
up in his other feelings for her. Out of it he answered 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


74 

against every inclination: “I’d love to, if you want me.” 

“Come,” she said, and without a word he followed her. 
Past the tall, bare lilac bushes, along the stones sunk in the 
turf between great clumps of box, to the door of faded, 
smoky green. And following thus, in a hush of silence 
that seemed quite natural, there came to Toby a sharp 
sense of irreparable loss ... a feeling of blankness and 
futility. It was followed by a blind flare of anger . . . 
and then he realized that Julie was having difficulty with 
the lock. At first she would not give up. He did not 
offer to help her . . . and after a minute she turned to 
him. 

“I can’t do it, Toby,” she confessed, quite unharassed 
and without impatience. 

Finally (as she stood aside without further words, that 
he might try to turn the key) Toby opened the door, and 
Julie went quickly by him into the house. 

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, standing in 
the doorway. 

She turned to look back from the foot of the stairs, there 
in the dimness of the hall . . . vital and lovely, in the at¬ 
mosphere of patient quietude emanating from old lovely 
things. A queer little smile hovered about her mouth. 
“It’s a book I want, Toby,” she explained, and went on up 
the stairs. The puppy went bravely scrambling after. 

As Toby stood there in the doorway a gust of wind 
swept past him, and flapped, with a tiny rustle and flick, 
the tag on the old iron key in the lock he had just turned. 
Then, in the silence that followed, there seemed to creep 
out to him from the past, on noiseless feet . . . old, puz¬ 
zling questions , , , that could find no answer. . . . With 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


75 

a restless motion he shook them off, and saw that Julie 
was coming down the stairs. Halfway down she turned 
to look at a picture that caught the light from the open 
door. Toby watched her put out her hand and gently 
straighten it upon the wall. There was something in the 
act, intimate and loving, as though she were alone . . . 
and no one saw. 

“I love that picture,” she said, as her eyes met Toby’s. 
“It was the first picture I ever had ... of my own. I used 
to think the man in the pink coat was Father, and the 
little girl in a blue sash on his shoulder . . . me.” She 
smiled at Toby, in naive explanation. 

“Did you find what you were after?” he asked, still 
from the doorway, as Julie came on down the stairs. 

She held up a thin, leather-bound book. “Marcus Au¬ 
relius. ... I can’t get on very well without him,” she 
confided, with a fugitive smile of excuse, and without look¬ 
ing around she passed Toby and went out. She waited 
while he shut and locked the door, and they went down 
the path together. . . . Beyond the lilac bushes Toby 
nearly ran into a woman riding along the lane on a fidgety, 
brown pony. 

“Mornin’,” said an amused voice. “Don’t run us down, 
Tobe.” 

“Have it your own way, woman, at the beginning!” 
Toby flung out with a droll look at Jane Challoner, which 
she entirely ignored . . . likewise the implication. “Just 
saw your old man, Julie,” she remarked, “makin’ all haste to 
get into the same field with a cartload of manure.” She 
gave a throaty gurgle. “Can’t you stop him, Julie?—his 
crude, man, farming ways?” 


7 6 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

Smiling, Julie met Jane’s amused glance. “I rather like 
’em. ... I know just how he feels about manure,” she 
said, and let her eyes, atwinkle with humor, rest on Jane’s 
face. 

Jane grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “Mike’s met 
his match,” she said mildly, giving in. . . . “I asked him 
where you were, and when he said he didn’t know, I told 
him he was a ninny! . . . Bring him over to tea this 
afternoon, anyway, Julie.” And, with a smile of great 
friendliness, Jane moved off on her crablike pony. 

“Nice person, Jane!” observed Toby. 

“Very—” agreed Julie with conviction. She was watch¬ 
ing the departing figure on horseback, in her eyes a look 
of amusement mixed with—was it a sort of wistful envy? 
Toby caught himself wondering. Not a bit like Julie. 

. . . “Come on home, Toby,” she said, swinging suddenly 
about. She tilted back her head and sniffed the wind that 
swooped along the lane. . . . “It’s goin’ to snow . . . and 
I’m hungry,” she announced irrelevantly. Toby gave a 
great laugh. This was Julie—this flash of inconsequence, 
that went so oddly with her—but that nevertheless did go. 
It made her very human. 


5 

It was their first evening alone. Like an old Darby and 
Joan, each with a book, Michael and Julie sat on either 
side of the hearth, with the four dogs, in differing atti¬ 
tudes of abandonment, sleeping between them on the 
rug. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


77 

The fire on its deep bank of ashes whispered and 
chuckled, with ruddy flicker. A rising wind boomed now 
and again in the chimney and sent gusts of snow to beat 
with muted rustle against the windows behind Michael. 
Once a dog whimpered, dreaming; and for a moment its 
legs twitched in the ghostly, futile running of a dog’s 
dream. Absently Michael stirred the sleeper with a gently 
rousing foot. Fanny, for she it was, gave a long tremulous 
sigh and settled once more into silence. . . . Michael 
slowly raised his eyes from the page he had not been reading 
for some minutes, to let them rest, almost absently at first, 
upon the woman sitting there at the other end of the 
hearth. She was reading, apparently absorbed . . . one 
of Synge’s plays. “Riders to the Sea,” she had told 
Michael. . . . He thought suddenly of the day he had 
given the book to Julie. Much stirred by that bit of life 
. . . stark in its somber reality, supremely portrayed in 
the simple and hauntingly beautiful words of the Irish 
poet, he had ridden over that very day, on a windswept 
afternoon in March, and they had read it then and there 
at tea time—he and Julie. . . . And now this girl, who 
had become his wife, was reading it again. His eyes 
lingered with approval and na’ive pleasure on the down- 
tilted face above the open book. . . . All unaware of any 
such regarding eyes, Julie read of Maury an and Cathleen 
. . . of Bartley’s death in the sea. . . . And Michael, 
watching her, noticed the dark sweep of her lashes and 
how the firelight caught coppery glints in her smooth, 
parted hair . . . and blurred with its gentle flickering 
light the line of her cheek. How beautifully quiet she 
could be. It was a gift few people were blessed with, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


78 

Michael found himself thinking. And suddenly he knew 
a warm feeling of security and comfort, just because she 
was there. . . . Had he forgotten what need a house had 
of a woman? It had been sixteen years since his mother 
died. Naomi had been married three years before that. 
Then the war had come. He had been twenty-six, that 
winter in France. Because of the horses, he had gone with 
the artillery. Toby had left college to drive an ambulance. 
... A year later, when it was all over, and France lay 
blasted under a gray winter sky, he had come home—a 
captain . . . miraculously unscathed in body, but with 
dark places in his mind which he put away and never 
spoke of. . . . And the next year, on a day in the spring 
when the world was a place of feathery green and blue¬ 
birds were in the orchard, his father had died. How like 
him it had been, never to have told them what he had 
learned when they were over there in France. Great, 
strong Michael Cochrane had fought his fight alone. His 
pluck and will were stronger than his heart. . . . He had 
missed his mother, and then his father, with a sharp sense 
of loss. That, too, he had never spoken of. And then, 
with the farm left to him, he had lived there alone—ex¬ 
cept for the times Toby came . . . which grew fewer, 
until he went away to Australia for those five years just 
over. . . . 

Now Julie was come to live there; and, for the first 
time, Michael found himself acknowledging the loneliness 
of those years, of which until this moment he had not 
been aware. 

A hard worker, a great lover of books, his life taken 
up with the care of horses and dogs—loving the country. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


79 

he had never had time to analyze things very much. 
Women had never held any part in his life, beyond the 
women of his family,—his mother, whom he adored, and 
Naomi . . . good old Naomi, with her big-hearted, amus¬ 
ing ways, and sane, happy outlook. Always he had known 
Julie ... a sort of other sister. They had all grown up 
together. Though Julie was younger, between Naomi 
and Toby, and Toby was six years younger than he. . . . 
How Naomi adored old Sherry—and he her. How strange 
it would be, he thought, to love a woman ... to have 
her love you, in that way. Rather wonderful, perhaps 
. . . but—inexorable. . . . He realized suddenly that for 
some time he had been staring in absorption at Julie’s 
face. A slow smile crept into his eyes, and stayed there. 
And then—Julie lifted her head and met his look. With 
simple disregard of it, she spoke in a sort of hushed awe 
of the book she held. 

“I’d forgotten, Michael—how superb it was! Listen to 
this—” she dropped her eyes to the page before her and 
began to read, her voice thrilling to the words: “‘Michael 
has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the 
Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out 
of white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more 
can we want than that? No man at all can be living for¬ 
ever, and we must be satisfied.’ ” There was a quiver in 
her voice on the last words, and, when she had finished, 
she laid the book still open, in her lap, and her eyes, with 
the dark gleam of tears in them, rested unashamed on 
Michael’s. 

Something stirred in Michael. For a moment he felt 
strangely inadequate, and young,—younger than Julie. 


8o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


With a misty sparkle in her eyes, Julie gave a little chok¬ 
ing laugh, that was somehow sadder than tears. “If we 
could all feel that—” she said. Then, before Michael 
could make an answer, with one of the swift changes, so in¬ 
triguing and so a part of her: “I’m thirsty, Mike, and I 
want a cigarette, too.” She smiled quickly and shut the 
book. 

Michael got to his feet and stood smiling back. “Milk, 
I suppose,” he said, with a questioning tilt of his head. 

“I’m afraid so, Michael—I’ve a shameful weakness for 
it,” she confided with an engaging sparkle, and started 
to get up. 

“Stay where you are,” he said; “I’ll fetch the child some¬ 
thing. Come on, all of you—you’ve got to go out,” 
he told the group of dogs that had come to life with 
cavernous yawns, stretchings and much strenuous shak¬ 
ing. Tess promptly sought Julie’s lap. Whereat Michael, 
with a grin of sympathy, caught her gently by the scruff 
of the neck, up under an arm, and made off with her. 
The two setters followed with alacrity. Not so, Fanny. 
She crouched unmoving, her nose between her paws. 

“Go on, you old lazy one,” encouraged Julie. Very 
loath, the dog crept dolefully after the others. From the 
door, she cast a final glance of half hopeful longing toward 
the fire, shook thoroughly, and padded out into the hall. 

Left alone, Julie got out of her chair and went nearer 
to the fire. A sudden gust of wind swooped down the 
chimney and sent the snow whispering in waves of sound 
against the windows. “Poor old Fanny,” she soliloquized 
half laughingly, “I know just how she feels.” . . . She 
pulled a low slipper chair on to the hearth, quite close to 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


81 


the fire, and dropping into it rested her elbows on her 
knees. Then, with her chin in her hands, she stared 
before her. ... A spark track was wending its way up 
the back of the chimney. This for a minute she watched, 
without a conscious thought . . . dreamily, until hearing 
Michael come along the hall, she leaned back, and stretch¬ 
ing her slippered feet to the warmth of the fire, crossed 
a pair of slim ankles and waited . . . utterly unaware of 
the picture she made. 

“Cinderella!” said Michael. He was crossing the room, 
bearing a tray, which he deposited on the end of the fire- 
bench nearest Julie; and swinging a long leg astride of 
the other end, sat down, facing her. 

“Oh—” exclaimed Julie with delight, “it’s the old hound 
pitcher!” She sent a slanting look, a quick gleam of 
amusement from laughing eyes. “How I did covet that 
pitcher when I was a child! Once,” she added drolly, “I 
dreamed it was mine.” 

With a chuckle, Michael reached a long arm, and grasp¬ 
ing the white, glazed body of the hound that made the 
handle of the pitcher, poured milk into one tall glass and 
then the other. Having done this, he set the pitcher down 
at Julie’s elbow. “Well,” he laughed, “you won’t have to 
dream it any more. It’s yours, from this minute.” Julie 
took the squat pitcher on her knees and slid her free hand 
over its smooth, fat side. 

“I love it, still . . . just as I did then,” she said. “Those 
five black and white hounds scooting around over the strip 
of green grass . . . and the lonely huntsman, with one 
lonely hound, way behind. . . . He’s just as lonely, and 
just as far behind, now, after all these years.” She smiled 


82 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


suddenly up at a much entertained Michael. “I’m an 
awful goose, Mike,” she confessed, “about things!” 

“I used to feel damn sorry for the poor old hound that 
got turned into a handle,” said Michael. “Sort of Tantalus 
act. Always lookin’ over the top . . . never getting any 
nearer . . . and having to watch milk being tipped away 
from under his very nose. Obliged, actually, to help you 
doing it. —Here you go,” he said, holding out her glass of 
milk, and he pushed gingerly nearer, a plate filled with 
molasses cookies. 

“Like ’em?” he asked. 

“Watch me!” was Julie’s answer. 

He did watch, even as he munched a cookie himself, and 
slowly drank milk out of his tall glass. 

“Would you care anything about riding around with me 
over the place to see the work . . . when I go, Julie?” he 
asked suddenly, apparently out of the blue. 

Julie shot him, a quizzical look over the rim of her 
glass. “Do you mind what Jane says, Mike?” she an¬ 
swered. . . . Was she teasing or was she not? Michael’s 
weathered face crinkled in a grin. “No,” he told her, 
“I don’t, unless what she says happens to coincide with 
what I want.” 

“Oh—” said Julie demurely, “I see.” 

“Do you? I wonder.” Michael set down his empty 
glass, with a tap. “I’d like it, Julie,” he said with finality, 
“if you’d do whatever strikes your fancy ... at all times. 
Ride or tie. . . . Will you?” 

She gave him a half mischievous glance. “You’re giv¬ 
ing me pretty free rein, Mike. You might be sorry, you 
know—afterwards.” . . . 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


83 


“No.” 

“Well—” she agreed, quite frankly now, “I like to ride 
—at any time . . . and I like you— So,” she shrugged 
deliciously, “you might have me wished on you a lot of 
the time.” . . . 

“I’ll take that risk,” said Michael warmly. He fed a 
piece of cookie to Tess, and got off the bench. “I don’t 
suppose you’d sing something,” he suggested. 

“Michael, my dear,” she answered, turning her face up 
to him, “I’m so beautifully sleepy, and so full of milk and 
cookies, that I’d sound like a drowsy bullfrog. . . . Do 
you mind, awfully, if I don’t?” She smiled reminiscently. 
“I must have slipped down a quart of milk.” 

Michael stretched out a hand and drew her up out of 
the low chair. “Ride or tie,” he assured her, but his 
voice was faintly rueful. 

“Good-night, Mike,” she said, suddenly become very 
gentle, and turning away, she left him staring after her 
with a puzzled expression in his eyes. “Good-night,” he 
echoed as she disappeared into the hall. 

In perfect innocence, sublimely unaware, Julie had made 
the first move in “playing the game.” By her simple re¬ 
fusal to sing, because she was sleepy . . . going off, instead, 
to bed . . . she had left behind her a new Michael. A 
Michael who looked with a certain bewilderment at her 
retreating figure, conscious that an odd feeling of frustra¬ 
tion stirred within him. 

He listened intently to the sound of Julie’s footsteps going 
up the stairs to the scrabbling accompaniment of the faith¬ 
ful Tess. Heard both growing fainter, and then the 
muffled closing of a door. Became, suddenly, sharply 


84 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

aware that in his mind he had followed Julie beyond that 
door into the fragrant, firelit room,—and swinging abruptly 
about went straight to the piano and began to play. 

The front door opened on a snowy gust of wind, and 
Toby came into the hall. He was met with the last notes 
of Julie’s cradle song. . . . “She’s playing to old Mike,” 
he said, and very carefully shut the door. 

For one moment he waited, listening. Then, with swift 
decision, stole across the hall and up the stairs, to his 
room. 

Oblivious, Michael played on. 


Chapter Four 


i 

H AVING, that night when she and Michael had 
drunk milk from the old hound pitcher, ac¬ 
cepted, in the spirit in which it was offered, 
Michael’s suggestion that she ride with him about the work 
of the farm, Julie had forthwith ridden or tied, as the case 
might be. . . . She had found herself happier at it than 
she would have thought possible . . . simply a comrade 
to the man she loved. A frank spirit of understanding, 
easy and unstrained, had sprung up and flourished. It 
was not love. . . . No; certainly it was not love. Julie 
could not imagine being loved by Michael—rather, she 
would not let herself dream—but it was a peaceful and quiet 
relationship, much more peaceful and quiet than her love 
for Michael. There Julie determined to let things rest 
. . . taking them naturally, as they came, day by day, 
without looking ahead to the future. She would follow 
Mike’s lead . . . schooling herself to take what simple 

85 




86 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


bits of happy companionship came her way. Giving all 
that was wanted: no more. For very safety’s sake—no 
whit more. 

Sometimes, in those two weeks, she had felt strangely 
as though she were dreaming a dream ... of peace and 
security, with somewhere at the back of it all a dim sense 
that if she waked— She would not wake! Just go on 
with the dream-quality of safety, holding fast to the elusive 
fabric of a thing that must not be shattered at any cost 
... for what was beyond. 

She often found herself acting with a cool naturalness 
that held a little shock of surprise . . . taking for granted 
situations which if she once waked would be hopeless, 
and she helpless and past caring who saw. . . . 

It was not cowardice on Julie’s part, this clinging to the 
present. It was, rather, a conscious act of will power, and 
courageous. She had the rare gift, amounting almost to 
genius, of being able to sense what went on in another’s 
mind. This she had always possessed, and with it the 
power to stand outside herself, as it were, and deal with 
circumstances, unbiased and impersonally. These qual¬ 
ities now stood her in good stead. Perhaps better than 
she knew. For in Julie there were no ulterior motives 
for what she did; but a spontaneity that was curiously 
convincing. 

Being thus so much with Michael in his daily super¬ 
vision of the big farm, with all its winter work now going 
forward, Toby had become for Julie just a natural part of 
the life, coming into it, going out of it, as the case might 
be. Her thoughts were not on him, beyond the first 
feeling of gratitude that he had forgotten all about the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


87 

past. She was not aware that she saw little or nothing of 
Toby, apart from these contacts which were simple and 
necessary in the day’s work. Michael, she knew, was ex¬ 
traordinarily glad to have him at home again. Toby was 
glad to be there. . . . Had Julie thought about it at all 
—which she did not—she would have said that the only 
element which Toby brought to Windy hill was a happy 
one. 

It was a Saturday morning. The January sun, in a clear 
and blameless sky, looked down on the big farm barn 
a-hum like a hive of bees. Whitewash was the order of 
the day, and every man Jack who could wield a brush 
was called into play to whitewash the inside of the main 
barn. 

Sam Tooth, dragged from whisking a duster and dish 
cloth, looking, with his house-pale face poking out of an 
ungainly muffler, for all the world like a long-necked 
bird, perched at the top of a tall ladder. The tails of his 
muffler hung down over a blue denim apron. His 
trousers were hitched high, showing a pair of thin ankles 
encased in striped socks, and his feet, in a huge pair of 
rubbers, seemed out of all proportion to the legs they 
ended oflf. Sticking out of his mouth was a corncob pipe 
—empty, of course—which every few minutes he carefully 
shifted from one corner to the other. In spite of this 
impediment to comprehensible speech, he kept up a run¬ 
ning fire of conversation with young Tabs, the gardener’s 
son, who was not far away. Old Joe was hard at work, 
too, emitting now and then the hissing sound accom¬ 
panying the grooming of a horse; and Christy, a taciturn 


88 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


farm hand, who was hardly ever known to speak: a giant 
of a high-cheek-boned Swede, with watery blue eyes, a 
veritable hound for work. He chewed solemnly now on 
a straw. Once he took it out of his mouth and with 
grave precision spat into a crack of the floor. Over in 
the corner, by the old blue grain bin, with overalls pulled 
on over his tweed things and a felt hat pushed back on 
his head, Michael hummed a little tune and slapped 
steadily with the wide, wet brush. Once he tilted his 
head to look up at the scarecrow on the ladder above, 
and a glint of humor lighted his eyes. “Old magpie,’’ he 
murmured with amused affection, and moved a pitchfork 
that stood in his way. 

The door was open into the yard. The day was very 
still. A long patch of sunlight lay on the rough boards 
of the floor. Now and then a horse moved in its stall, 
and from the far end of the barn came the subdued creak 
and clank of a stanchion, as some cow stretched her neck 
and snorted into the bottom of the trough, in search of 
remaining feed. From somewhere high on the rafters came 
the intermittent cooing of pigeons. Slap, slap—on went 
the whitewash. . . . 

Michael was now humming a song of Julie’s. He was 
thinking about Julie—thinking that somehow she had 
brought luck to the old farm there on the hillside . . . An 
open winter, but plenty of ice to cut from the pond beyond 
the five-acre field, enough snow to haul the wood that was 
cut—and lots of sun for the young stock in the yards. — 
The hens had never done better, and there had been two 
fine heifers. God knew what all that meant in these hard 
times, he thought gratefully. He had looked out a dozen 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


89 

times to where she stood by one of the farm wagons, 
painting it a rich blue. —Decent, and just like her to want 
to help like that! The best part of it, too . . . she damn 
well liked it all—old Windy hill. What luck that she 
did! Of her own accord, she had taken to it like a duck 
to water. He heaved a sigh of content and went on slap¬ 
ping the big brush over the boards before him. She had 
fitted right in, with no bother or fuss, and—yes, he liked 
having her about—surprisingly. . . . He wondered sud¬ 
denly how Julie liked it. You couldn’t ask, somehow, if 
she were happy. You just had to see to it that she was, he 
thought with resolution . . . work for it like the devil. 
... It wouldn’t be so hard, at that, he reflected. Julie 
was intriguing. You’d never be bored with her for a 
minute. She went her way quietly, but she was unex¬ 
pected. There was something deliciously incalculable 
about her . . . her mind took fascinating, unexpected 
turns. You couldn’t be quite sure if she were laughing 
... or not ... at things. But, Lord, how she could laugh 
with you! 

With a last brushful, Michael had finished the corner 
by the grain bin. 

Julie had come to the spokes of the wheel. Standing 
off for a moment, the brush carefully poised in a hand cov¬ 
ered by a large white cotton glove, she surveyed her side 
of the cart, that gleamed with fresh blue paint. A small 
black beret pulled down on her hair, her black clothes 
hidden by an old leather jerkin of Michael’s, over a heavy 
blue smock, with her head cocked in appraisal, her eyes, 
absorbed, fastened upon the farm wagon before her, she 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


90 

looked like nothing in the world but a happy-go-lucky boy. 

“That’s all right,” she said at last, with decision. At her 
words, a head bobbed up from the far side of the cart—a 
fair, tousled head, with a small red toboggan cap slewed 
to one side, the yarn rosette on top cocked perkily over 
one ear. It was little Martin. Martin, who Pip said 
could smell out a pot o’ paint a mile away, and would go 
rushing off to it like an engine to a fire. He had got 
wind of the Saturday morning’s painting bee, and had ar¬ 
rived while Julie was still at breakfast—to get his finger 
in the paint pie—more than his finger! A large blue 
daub reposed now on one cheek-bone. Another tipped 
his ear. 

Julie gave a gay laugh, at the apparition rearing up 
before her. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Martin, rubbing the back 
of a gloved hand up and down his nose, thereby adding 
more blue to his already much-decorated person. 

“The matter!” Julie’s face broke up in a quick smile. 
“You look like an Indian brave ready for the warpath.” 

“Do I truly?” Martin showed genuine interest. His 
gray eyes left Julie’s amused ones and traveled down over 
his stocky self, thus ducking his head for the moment out 
of Julie’s sight. 

“Damn it!” He was swearing softly, without wrath. 
“There’s a big blob of it on my stocking.” He heaved a 
gusty sigh and sent a comical glance over the cart at 
Julie, then suddenly burst into a little spurt of laughter. 
“Lucy’ll give me the dickens,” he confided with a fat 
chuckle. 

“She ought to,” answered Julie soberly; but her eyes 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


9i 

sparkled with ready laughter. Then bending to dip her 
brush into the pot at her feet, she began to paint the rim 
of the big wheel before her. . . . Her thoughts had gone 
to Michael. 

“How soon do babies begin to come?” . . . The ques¬ 
tion, launched from the other side of the cart, brought 
Julie’s head up with a jerk. . . . Standing on the hub of 
his wheel, his elbows hooked over the iron rim, Martin 
was regarding her with friendly and engaging inquiry. 

“Come?” echoed Julie, sparring for time. “Come where, 
Marty?” And, even as she spoke, she heard the approach 
of horses’ hoofs. Beyond the small figure leaning on the 
wheel, she saw that Jane was jogging a white pony into 
the yard. Beside her, his hand on her stirrup-iron, walked 
Toby. 

“Is that the way you paint, Marty?” he called. The boy 
screwed about . . . lost his footing on the hub, and, with 
a rasping of buttons and scrabbling of feet, slithered to 
earth. 

“It’s Julie’s fault, of course,” murmured Toby in a con¬ 
fidential tone over his shoulder to Jane. “She’s had 
Marty stuck up there in front of her, painting pictures 
on his face.” 

“I do see a horse,” came slyly in Jane’s husky voice, 
“trotting across his of? cheek. . . .” 

“Sure,” abetted Toby; “an’ there’s a full-rigged ship, 
makin’ heavy weather of it, on his upper lip.” 

“Geese—aren’t they, Marty?” laughed Julie—partly with 
relief. That question of his was still hanging in the air, 
and diversion was to be welcomed. Toby sent a grin in 
their direction and walked on into the barn. And Jane, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


92 

for once on something that didn’t sidle and fuss—a sober 
old pony who had in her day queened it on the polo field 
—moved over to the scene of action. 

“Been to see Naomi?” asked Julie, renewing her efforts 
with the paintbrush. 

“No— Been to see Mrs. M. Cochrane.” 

“Sounds funny, doesn’t it?” Martin, in the act of 
squeezing extra paint out of the brush against the side 
of the pail, straightened up and took a step toward Jane. 
His face bright with an idea, he put out a hand to the 
pony’s nose, and stroking it looked up at Jane. 

“I was just asking Julie something when you came,” he 
began cheerfully, “but I don’t really s’pose— She’s been 
married such a tiny bit of time, against you ...” A 
sudden doubt clouded his candid eyes . . . “But they 
didn’t ever come to you, did they, Mrs. Challoner,” he 
said slowly. 

“Bless the child— Is it babies, by any chance ... ?” 
There was a look of great gentleness in the thin face 
turned to little Martin. He nodded gratefully; then over¬ 
come with sudden shyness, because things seemed to be 
getting solemn, he looked down to where his feet were 
planted. Julie went on painting, offering no help to any¬ 
one. She knew Jane had sent a glance her way. Did Jane 
know—or did she not? —Why should she? 

“What is it you want, old man?” Julie heard Jane’s 
encouraging voice ... as though she were talking to a 
horse, she thought. 

“You see—” answered the boy, gathering fresh courage, 
“Julie getting married to Mike made me think of it. . . .” 
He looked suddenly up into Jane’s nice face. “I love tiny 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


93 

babies, Mrs. Challoner,” his clear gray eyes looked into 
the woman’s blue ones. “That is—the only ones I ever 
saw, I did. . . . Something like puppies ... so cosy and 
warm, and all squiggly. They make noises like pigeons 
and kittens an’ things.” He was warming to his theme. 
“We don’t seem to have babies, ever, in our house ... an’ 
I thought that p’raps one might come to Mike’s house, now 
that he’s married to Julie. It seems to happen like that. 
Would you know how soon it could get there, Mrs. 
Challoner?” 

Julie felt a wave of hot blood sweep up into her face, and 
hoped that Jane was not looking at her. Leaning in des¬ 
peration to dip her brush into the blessed blind of a pot of 
blue paint, she heard Michael’s voice from the barn 
doorway: “What’s that young scamp trying to wheedle out 
of you, Jane?” He was coming out to them. What would 
Jane say? 

But the matter of an answer was not to be left in Jane’s 
capable light hands. Dogged small Martin was not go¬ 
ing to be thwarted within sight of his goal. He wheeled 
about and faced the approaching Michael. “When d’you 
s’pose you an’ Julie’ll have a tiny baby?” he asked—and 
waited. 

Instinctively Julie turned to Michael. For the fraction 
of a second his buoyant oncoming checked; a curious blank 
expression came into his face. Then he laughed . . . 

“Only the Lord can tell you that, Marty,” he said. 

“Damn it!” rapped out Martin with comical impatience; 
“I knew nobody would know. . . .” 

Her thin figure crumpled over the white pony’s neck, 
Jane Challoner was sobbing with laughter. . . . 


94 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 

After a hilarious Sunday lunch (Pip and young Tom 
had been there), whereat the topics of conversation, in the 
manner of the Cochranes, had ranged with apparent ease 
and a curious continuity, from politics, hard times, and 
industrial recovery, to the bull calf and the best way 
to make a telemark turn on skis, Julie and Michael, with 
the two boys, had gone off on the ponies to see David 
Cochrane in his old house on the other side of the town. 
They had urged Toby, wholeheartedly, to go along; but 
Toby had said a smiling, though determined, no. . . . 
He might go skating on the river with Micky and Tim, or 
he might foot it off over the hills, somewhere. . . . So, 
perforce, they had gone without him. 

He stood now in the end window of the library watch¬ 
ing the four walk off up the cart tracks to the gate at the 
top, on their way to the barn and the ponies,—watching, 
really, Julie’s trim figure, in breeches and boots, as she 
walked arm in arm with the irrepressible Pip. He wished, 
with sudden and sharp resentment, that he could walk 
like that with Julie ... or else—as Mike had the right— 
and didn’t. God! what a curious mess it all was! His 
lips twisted in a brief, sardonic smile, not often seen upon 
them. What a hell of a hard thing old Mike had so 
naively asked of him: to stay there ... for a minute! 
Mike wanted him on the farm. That was the worst of 
it. He couldn’t be such a damned ungrateful skunk as 
to cut and run ... just because living under the same 
roof with Julie meant a sort of miserable hell of torment. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


95 

If Mike loved Julie—if she loved Mike—God knew that 
would be bad enough— But not this nonsense . . . like 
trying to keep out of the way of Mike’s sister—and his. 
Good God, what a queer mix-up it was! . . . How would 
it all end,—and where? 

. . . The two of ’em seemed perfectly happy—ridiculously 
content—with nothing. —He’d damn well have to keep 
his hands off . . . and ride straight. . . . With a quick 
gesture of impatience he swung from the window and 
walked out into the silent hall. He had entirely for¬ 
gotten Micky and Tim. . . . Utter stillness reigned in the 
old house. No dog was about, not even the ubiquitous 
Fanny. 

Cramming a hat on his head, he collected some gloves, 
and taking a stick from the corner opened the door and 
went out. 

It was a good day. Toby, always conscious of the 
weather, had to admit that. Great clouds trailed out in 
a fresh and clearing wind. There seemed to be a sheen 
of sunlight over the hills and woods. The sky had It, 
too. A spontaneous love of it all stirred in Toby. For a 
moment the sight and feel of it cleared his brain of tor¬ 
menting thoughts. 

Before him the hill climbed in a wide sweep to the road 
and the darkness of woods against a windy sky. The 
snow was almost gone. Just patches of it were left lying 
along the north sides of the walls. It showed very white 
on the green of the winter rye, all the way by the wall at 
the top. Suddenly the woods beyond seemed to beckon 
to him. He thought of the beeches there, sheltered and 
waiting. “Right,” he said aloud. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


96 

In the woods he found more snow. But it was crusty 
and crunched with a satisfying crispness beneath the hob¬ 
nails of his heavy boots. Overhead, in the tops of the 
hemlocks, the wind sounded like the sea very far off. Once 
a rabbit whisked across his path, its white scut perkily 
aloft. And once, with a startling and raucous crow, a 
pheasant shot up and slanted off between the trees. 

With a sharp thrust of gratification, he knew how much 
he loved it all—the woods, the hills, the river—all the 
places he had known and loved as a little boy. That, at 
least, was the same. He could keep all of it in his heart, 
still. 

And so for the moment forgetting what life had let 
him in for, he followed the last twist of the path and came 
out by the hemlock on the edge of the opening where the 
beeches stood. Under the westering sun, the feathery 
grass sticking up through the light snow had taken on a 
ruddy tone. Long shadows crept out from the trees at the 
western end where he stood. The boles and lower branches 
of the beeches were in shadow, but the upper branches 
stood out luminous and silvery. A trailing cloud swept 
across the sky above the tops of the pines beyond. 

Having stood for a moment as immovable as the trunk 
of the hemlock beside him, the thought suddenly came to 
Toby that he would look up Jane. With a last look at the 
beeches, he moved off along the path that followed the edge 
of the open space and plunged at the end into deep pine 
woods. Here the path began to drop downhill. Swinging 
along at a good pace, Toby soon came out at the bottom, 
into the open. Before him were the barns and paddocks, 
so out of all proportion to the tiny old house where the 
Challoners lived. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


97 

Jane was at home, for the sole reason that she had a 
bad cold. In the low, sheathed room at the back of the 
house, that had once been the kitchen, with the inevitable 
troop of dogs (mostly terriers), in the familiar aroma of 
leather and apples and wood fires, Toby found her crouched 
unresignedly by the huge fireplace, that took up, with its 
ovens and cupboards, one whole side of the room. 

“God be praised for the sight of a human being!” was 
her greeting. And then: “Aren’t colds the devil, Toby?” 
Here she fished an enormous silk handkerchief out of a 
tweed pocket, and blew her nose, vigorously, almost vin¬ 
dictively. 

“The devil an’ all, Jane,” laughed Toby, and throwing 
his hat down, he made his way past four or five obstrep- 
orously welcoming dogs, and stood looking with vast 
amusement at the abject figure crumpled up in the wing 
chair by the hearth. 

“Don’t often catch you lying down,” he offered as en¬ 
couragement. 

“Don’t stand there staring at my red nose,” snapped 
Jane. “Sit down an’ talk . . . you’ll have to do it all. 
An’ make it amusing! I’ll nod assent, between the 
sneezes.” She gave a croaky chuckle. 

Jane was looking reflectively at Toby’s spare figure, now 
seated on the end of the long bench before the fire. An 
unwilling gleam of admiration flickered up in her pale 
eyes as they came to rest on his absurdly good-looking 
face. “Though mine eyes stream—” she said, with the 
sense of humor that never deserted her, “I can see you 
well enough. ... I don’t know whether it makes me feel 
worse or better to see anyone so shamelessly bursting with 
health.” They laughed together, in the companionable 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


98 

way of old friends. . . . Jane was the first to sober down. 

“Light up, Toby, and get going,” she suggested; “I can’t 
even smoke, blast it! Josh is off somewhere exercising 
the colt and a few of the dogs, and ‘Winnie the Pooh’ 
is off seeing ‘A'n. t’, down in the town. . . . We’ll wrastle 
a dish of tea for me, and a long drink for you, when the 
spirit moves. Till then,—what’s on your mind?” 

While Jane had been delivering this peroration Toby 
had watched her with a curiously detached look, as though 
making up his mind to something. At the end of it he 
drew his breath in sharply and turned his gaze to the fire. 
Jane watched him shrewdly. 

“How is it, over the hill?” she asked. 

“What do you mean, Jane?” Toby went on looking 
into the fire. 

“Stop sparring.” Jane leaned back in her chair and 
rested her head against the wing. “I’m not up to it, Tobe. 
I mean just what you think. . . . Julie and Mike, of 
course. Your negligible answer itself proves something. 
But we’ll let it drop there, perhaps.” 

“No, Jane,” said Toby, looking quickly up. “But you’ll 
have to give me a lead, of sorts. . . . Country’s new to 
me, and a bit blind.” 

Then, without waiting for the lead, Toby went on 
soberly: “Mike’s pretty deep, Jane, though he seems so 
simple. He doesn’t blurt ’em out, but he has reasons for 
things. If he once believes a thing’s right, he’ll go through 
fire and water—to the gates of Hell—to do it. Nothing 
—no one—can stop him.” 

“Can’t see what you’re driving at,” whipped out Jane’s 
hoarse voice. “Reasons for things? . . . Plenty of reason 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


99 

for the thing in question: Mike’s marrying Julie. I s’pose 
he loves her.” 

Toby kept steady eyes on Jane. “Perhaps. . . . They 
don’t happen to be living together,” he said bluntly. 

“That does take some stiff reasoning,” murmured Jane, 
no whit abashed. 

“One obvious one, at least. Mike was quite frank about 
it when I blurted out something at the start. He doesn’t 
love Julie. . . .” 

“And you do,” shot out Jane, before she thought. 

Though the blood rushed up in his face, Toby looked 
steadily at Jane; but he made no answer. 

“I see,” said Jane, suddenly very gentle. 

“Do you, I wonder?” said Toby, “all of it . . . ?” 

“I can make a pretty fair guess, if you want me to,” was 
the self-contained answer. 

“Go on,” said Toby. “Say what you want, Jane.” 

“Of course, part of it isn’t a guess, old man,” Jane began 
evenly. “I saw you come out of Julie’s house, on a spring 
evening, five years ago. All who saw you then, Toby, 
might have read as they ran. For no fault of mine, I did 
read,—and I ran. Mutely, till this moment, Toby. . . .” 
The man on the fire bench remained unmoving as stone, 
staring before him. “Shall I go on?” asked Jane quietly. 
Toby simply nodded. . . . 

“You went away—as far away as you could go . . . for 
just one reason, of course. I can’t suppose Mike knew 
that reason, or what has happened would not have fol¬ 
lowed.” Almost imperceptibly, Toby shook his head. Jane 
paused for a minute. The tall clock in the hall began to 
strike—five. Unconsciously she waited until the last 


100 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 

resonance died away. Then she lifted her head from the 
wing of the chair, and leaned forward, resting her elbows 
on her knees. 

“Go on, Jane,” said Toby, for the second time. Jane 
was thinking fast. She began to speak. “Then, while 
you were off there for those five years, because nothing 
stands still—love, or time, or smoke—you either thought 
you had got over it, or knew you hadn’t. And so came 
home . . . satisfied—or prepared to try again. . . .” 

“I thought it was all over.” The words burst from Toby, 
and he turned to look at Jane. The pain in his eyes was 
deep . . . 

“I happened home—in the very midst of it,” he went on 
fiercely, the pent-up feeling of two weeks rushing out now. 
. . . “I was left to eat the bridal feast with Julie, alone . . . 
while Mike went to a cow who was calving—” he was past 
any sense of humor— “That night, I knew—it was not 
over. . . . They’re as happy as two kids—with nothing!” 
he said, with the unreasoning resentment of a child batter¬ 
ing on a closed door. “God, what a mess!” he finished 
vehemently. 

“It’s damnably hard on you, old man,” said Jane simply, 
“but why a mess—if they’re happy?” 

“For two reasons,” Toby said impatiently: “sooner or 
later one of ’em will get hit . . . and it’s hell for me.” 

“You’ll have to let the first reason take care of itself. 
The last is in your hands to stop; why do you stay, Toby?” 

“That’s the hell—Mike needs me . . . Wants me, any¬ 
way. He asked me to stay and help him. I owe him 
such a damn lot,” he finished miserably. 

Jane reached out a hand and laid it on Toby’s knee. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


IOI 


“You owe Mike—or any man,” she said somberly, “a 
clear field with his own wife, Toby. If there is the 
shadow of a doubt that you can’t keep your hands off— 
the best, the biggest thing you can do—whatever Mike 
might think—is to get out; cut and run, Toby, before 
anyone knows.” 

Without looking at Jane, Toby got off the bench, and 
walking to the window stood looking up into the woods 
that climbed the hill. 

After a minute, he swung savagely about. 

“I can’t, Jane,” he said hoarsely, roughly, “I can’t. . . .!” 

The front door opened. Josh Challoner was calling 
his wife. “You can, and you will, Toby,” came the firm, 
quiet words, from Jane. Then: “I’m here, Josh, with 
Toby,” she called out. “And I think he could use a 
drink.” 

A man laughed. “Right!” came the cheerful answer. 
Footsteps crossed the hall. A door shut, beyond. 

The two in the room faced each other for a moment, 
without speaking. 

“You’re a brick, Jane!” said Toby at last. Then, more 
lightly: “What an afternoon I’ve wished on to you!” 

A watery gleam lighted Jane’s eyes. “I think it’s fright¬ 
ened my cold off,” she said. And there, being Jane, she 
left it. 


3 

Julie and Michael were going up the stairs together, fol¬ 
lowed by the faithful Tess, who saw to it that Julie was 
never out of sight if, by hook or crook, she could have it 



102 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


otherwise. They went slowly, step for step, with Michael’s 
arm through Julie’s. It was one of the hardest things she 
had to school herself to, each day afresh, this offhand 
friendliness of Michael: to meet it naturally and frankly, 
halfway. It grew no easier; but Julie was nothing if 
not game. She fooled them all—playing the amusing 
and gay comrade, with, apparently, enormous enjoyment. 
Little, indeed, did Toby know of the struggle and sheer 
grit it took to achieve the effect given, of being “perfectly 
happy—ridiculously content—with nothing!” 

It was nearly midnight,—an almost unheard-of hour 
for countryman Michael to be up; and, even now, Toby 
was still smoking a final pipeful of the strong tobacco he 
used, over the fire in the library. 

Toby had started off with an absurd description of 
Jane and her red nose,—Jane held to the fire with a cold, 
struggling to read. From there they had naturally got 
on to the topic of books—and the virtue of American 
authors as against English and Irish. Toby had held out 
for the Americans—with some brilliance, no whit downed 
by the fact that he had Julie and Michael both against 
him. Knowing, even, that his brother’s wife, as well as 
his brother, was no mean critic of the written word. 
Balance, cadence, plot, style, lift—strength, had all been 
run the gamut. . . . 

“If it’s strength you’re after,” had been Toby’s parting 
shot, delivered with a grin, as the two left him, “you do 
win. Why, some of those English fellars’ books are so 
strong, it’s a wonder they don’t bubble into foam—and 
burst their covers. They can stew in their own juice, as 
far as I’m concerned. They’re too damn strong.” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


103 

Michael had sent an answering grin from the doorway, 
where he stood arm in arm with Julie. “They’re alive!” 
he had answered. 

“So is a piece of old meat—or a bit of rancid cheese— 
But not with an element you cherish, particularly. —Go 
to bed, both of you—” Toby had advised with an amusing 
grimace of disgust. 

“Good little boy,” Julie’s eyes had sparkled for a mo¬ 
ment with an irresistible twinkle. “It’s lovely to be pure 
—and stick to things of good report. . . . Drink your 
warm milk . . .” Her face had broken suddenly into a 
smile of deep friendliness, her voice had lost its tone of 
banter,—“Good-night, Toby.” 

Toby’s only reply had been to swing about on the fire 
bench and haul a pipe out of his pocket. . . . 

Julie and Michael came to a halt at the top of the stairs. 
“Do you want Conrad now, Julie?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she answered with alacrity. 

A gleam of enthusiasm lighted Michael’s eyes. “Come 
along with me,” he said, “I’ll show you that old Stafford¬ 
shire horse I told you about.” 

Without waiting for an answer, he caught Julie’s arm 
and led her along the hall, past Toby’s room across from 
the big room that had been his father’s and mother’s, to 
the room on the southeast corner, that looked up over the 
hill to the barns, and the woods beyond,—the room that 
had been his, always, since he was old enough to have 
one of his own. 

At the door he dropped Julie’s arm, and going in be¬ 
fore her flashed on the light. 

For the first time since she had been a child, with 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


104 

curiously mixed feelings and a thickly beating heart, 
Julie stood on the threshold of Michael’s room. . . . The 
light came from two old tin sconces, one at either end of 
the narrow shelf above the fireplace. The room was cold. 
One window was wide to the dark. . . . His back turned, 
Michael was making straight for the shelf above the fire. 
Julie drew in a sharp breath, and, with her heart pounding 
absurdly, went into her husband’s room. . . . Michael 
had taken something from the shelf. He turned to face 
her. 

“Here he is,” he said, and held out his hand. Slowly 
Julie crossed the room and went to him. . . . On the 
palm of his hand stood a small cream-colored Stafford¬ 
shire horse with a black mane. The base was a lovely 
apple-green. 

“Oh!” she said with quick delight for the little figure, 
“he’s perfect, Mike!” 

“Yes, he is. Take him.” Michael gave the little horse 
into Julie’s keeping, and walked over to a jog in the wall, 
in the corner beyond the fireplace. “Which book did you 
want, Julie?” he asked. He had switched on another 
light, that hung in an old lantern. It shone on dim colors 
and the glint of gold on the backs of many books. The 
whole recess was lined with them . . . from the floor to 
the low ceiling. 

“Chance” said Julie, and going slowly up to the shelf 
from which Michael had taken the little horse, put it care¬ 
fully back, and, while Michael sought the book she had 
asked for, stood silently looking up at a splendid water- 
color: stark and daring, three great trees at the top of a 
sweep of snowy hill. One felt the wind that blew—and 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


I0 5 

the cold of it. It was there in the great tortured branches 
sharply cut against the clear, translucent green of the 
wintry sky . . . and the long, blue shadows stretching 
from the trees, athwart the snow of the hillside. . . . 
Julie was suddenly aware that Michael had come up and 
was standing beside her. “Sherry did that,” he said. 

Her eyes still raised to the picture, she knew that he 
was looking at her. . . . She stood thus for a further 
moment, not wanting to break the curious sense of one¬ 
ness—of their being there in silence, side by side, in 
Michael’s room. Then, because she dared wait no longer, 
she took her eyes from the picture and slowly turned to face 
him. 

“I can’t say what I think of it, Mike,” she said. “It’s too 
big—too beautiful and cruel and real, for me to try.” 

“Here’s the book, Julie,” he answered, without any fur¬ 
ther comment on the picture . . . and suddenly she knew 
she must go . . . right away, out of this room. It was 
too near to things that couldn’t be. . . . 

She smiled up into Michael’s eyes and reached out her 
hand for the book he held. 

“What a whirl of an evening we’ve had!” she said lightly. 
“It must be nearly morning.” With the book in her 
hand, she left him there before the hearth, and walked 
over to the door. 

At the threshold she turned to send back a whimsical 
look. “Good-night, Mike,” she said; and with a slow 
smile, humorous, half teasing, “Don’t catch your death, 
standing there in that open window.” 

“I like it,” he said. 

Her eyes still upon him, Julie gave a tiny shrug, that 


io 6 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


seemed to say, with amusement, “Have your way. . . 
And turning from him she went out into the hall. 

“Good-night,” he called after her, half laughing. Then 
sobering suddenly, he swung about to look up at Sherry’s 
picture. . . . 

After a minute of somber reflection, he turned his back 
upon those three gaunt trees against a windswept sky 
. . . and, with an odd feeling of restlessness, new to him, 
his eyes roved about the room . . . coming to rest at 
last upon a clutch of boyish trophies hanging on the wall 
in the corner, above a squat, book-covered table,—two 
fox brushes carefully crossed beneath a fox’s mask. . . . 
Suddenly, vividly, a long-ago run with his father’s hounds 
came back to him. In his mind’s eye, he saw, clearly, a 
small figure with a thatch of wind-blown, flaming hair, 
going straight, and without a qualm, for a huge stonewall. 
. . . Remembered exactly the twist and swerve of the 
lean, gray hunter she rode . . . and the fury of invective, 
in a clear voice, hurled after a vanishing horse,—“Damn 
your hide!”. . . He had subsequently caught the wise old 
gray, and somehow hustled the pair—Julie once again 
up—over the wall. . . . He had followed suit; and, having 
then, to his way of thinking, done enough, had taken 
his own line. . . . Skinning through some woods, he had 
come out on the far side to find himself miraculously alone 
with hounds. . . . He gave a spontaneous laugh, now, 
as he stood looking at that moth-eaten old mask of a 
fox. . . . 

“Little, spunky devil of a kid!” he said aloud, after a 
minute. He wished suddenly, surprisingly, that Julie 
hadn’t gone off to bed in such a hurry. . . . He didn’t 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


107 


feel a bit like going to bed, himself. ... It was cold, 
though: his eyes instinctively went to the open window, 
and now he smiled— What a great oaf of a barbarian 
he must seem to Julie, he thought ruefully . . . This cold 
room, bare of the things a woman seemed to bring with 
her—comfort and warmth. . . . The old library down 
there had it, somehow, already. He couldn’t tell . . . 
just how— But it was different; and he liked it, that was 
all. Yes, he really did like it. Moved by an impulse he 
did not question, he went over and switched off the 
lights. Then crossing to the open window, he stood 
looking out into the winter night. 

The waning moon hung low in the sky above the dark 
trees at the top of the hill. He could hear the swish of 
the wind, like the rush of surf far away, in the tall pines 
at the edge of the lane. Their long shadows lay across a 
patch of snow, and climbed halfway up the wall of the 
old kitchen ell— God, it was lovely! . . . Quiet and 
cold . . . with the moon sailing up there over the dark 
woods . . . He wished suddenly that Julie were seeing 
it, too. “Old sleepy-head!” he murmured, and smiled, re¬ 
membering her face in the doorway. Then: “By Gad,” 
he said in swift surprise, “I never let the dogs out . . .!” 


Chapter Five 


i 

T HE two brothers stood before the fire in the library. 
With head bent, and eyes intent on the work of his 
hands, Toby was filling his pipe. Michael, his 
shoulders pressed back against the mantelpiece, his hands 
thrust deep in the pockets of his corduroy breeches, let 
eyes of amused content rest on the girl in the big leather 
armchair before him. The lithe figure settled there gave 
the effect, as always when at rest, of extreme repose. That 
such a body, so filled with the fire of energy, so apparently 
untiring, could, at a moment’s notice, so subside, was a 
never-ending wonder to Michael. Like Toby’s, her head, 
too, was bent . . . that shapely, burnished head. . . . Her 
eyes rested dreamily upon the steadily clicking knitting 
needles in her hands. On the low table at her elbow, 
some springing up, others curled over, a mass of pale yel¬ 
low tulips, in the copper jar Julie loved, sent forth, on 
the resinous warmth from the fire, the cool fragrance of 

108 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


109 

spring. Once she turned and sniffed with slow delight 
the nearest tulip. For a moment longer, Michael watched 
her with amused reflection; then: “Who gets the cherry- 
colored jerkin, Julie?” he asked. 

With a quick tilt of her head, Julie looked up to meet 
the humorous questioning eyes bent upon her. “Marty,” 
she said; and with a smile creeping over her face, “Do 
you covet it, Mike?” Michael laughed happily, and made 
no other answer. 

Toby had finished the business of filling his pipe. 
“Well, Mike,” he said slowly, without raising his eyes, 
“shall we be off?” 

“No,” was the surprising answer—whimsical but defi¬ 
nite. Michael was looking at Julie. “It’s Monday after¬ 
noon . . . there’s ice-cutting, wood-hauling, more dressing 
to go on—but I’m goin’ to turn my back on ’em all and 
foot it off over the hills— Will you come, Julie?” 

Michael saw an impish sparkle dance for a moment in 
a pair of green eyes. “You crazy man ... I might—” 
Julie said mischievously. 

Toby gave a grunt, made his way among the dogs 
drowsing on the floor, then turned to look at the two. 

“It’s damn cold,” he remarked. “Better not poke your 
noses over too many hilltops ... or you’ll come back 
without ’em.” 

They stood on the side of a hill, sheltered from the cold 
wind by a sprawling cedar tree. The river, a width of 
black ice, cut about at the foot of the hill to disappear 
under the shallow arch of an old bridge. Beyond the 
river, the bare brown winter fields crept up to a group 


no 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


of yellow farm buildings, passed it on either side, and 
climbed to meet a ridge of dark woods on another hill. 

In the forced constriction of the shelter, standing there 
in the cold of the winter afternoon, Julie’s arm was pressed 
for a moment against Michael’s. Unconscious of the 
cold, knowing only a moment of exquisite happiness, 
she neither moved nor spoke. 

Julie had never seen before just the Michael of this past 
hour. That subtle reserve, that, seeming to give all, gave 
in reality so little of his inmost self, had for once dropped 
away. For that short hour since they had left the road 
and plunged into the woods below the Challoners’, she 
had felt strangely, miraculously near to seeing the real 
Michael. . . . Now, while she stood thus beside him, she 
felt, suddenly, with a thrust of fearful joy, that she must 
not, could not, stir or speak; but that dared she raise her 
eyes to look upon his face, she would see there, naked and 
unashamed—the real man. . . . 

Michael abruptly broke the silence: “Look!” he whis¬ 
pered. One arm was about her shoulders. His strong 
fingers grasped her arm. 

“What?” She gave a little breathless laugh. “Where, 
Mike?” 

“A fox—down there by the edge of the river—” He 
swung her swiftly toward him, his free arm pointing 
down the hill. . . . For a bewildering moment she 
seemed to be enveloped by the cold, fresh tang of tweed 
and tobacco . . . and clean, out-of-door man. 

“Do you see him?” Michael urged assent, as eagerly 
as a boy. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


hi 


Julie did. But little, sporting Tess saved her words for 
her. A small black body, with wildly flapping ears, was 
streaking aslant the hill. Frantic and continuous as the 
whistle of a train, her “view halloo” streamed out behind. 

Michael gave a short laugh of incredulous delight. His 
arm slid quickly from Julie’s shoulder. . . . “Come on,” 
he said, “we’re alone with hounds. . . Julie caught 
the brief flash of laughing eyes above, then, with an 
answering laugh, fled down through the cold air in the 
wake of a long-legged man and a small black dog in full 
cry. 

The fox, like a ruddy shadow, melted into a patch of 
junipers, and was seen no more. Tess followed, mute 
now for lack of breath. . . . They could hear snufflings 
and scratching going on somewhere inside. Michael 
turned a radiant face to Julie. “A sharp burst!” he got 
out, and exploded with laughter. 

Before Julie could make any answer to this sally, there 
came the brittle sound of shattered ice from beyond the 
covert of juniper. 

“My God!” said Michael, “the little lady’s in. . . .” He 
plunged through the low bushes, Julie after him. 

“She couldn’t have got into the river,” offered Julie 
with some confidence. 

“There are funny holes here that don’t freeze much.” 
Michael jerked the words over his shoulder as he ploughed 
on through the prickly stuff. The sharp tang of crushed 
juniper rose about them . . . and then Julie saw Michael 
crouch suddenly over. 

Julie was beside him. “Wait a minute, Tess,” he was 


112 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


soothing the piteous struggles of a frantic puppy wallow¬ 
ing in broken ice and dark icy water. “She’s caught by 
the leg, on the other side of the hole,” he said. “I’ve got 
her so she won’t go under. Can you slip round and see 
what’s holding her. ... ?” 

“Poor little girl,” whispered Julie. She was bending 
over feeling about in the ice-filled water. She pulled 
gently on a submerged root, and the freed body of the 
cocker bobbed high. Michael hauled her out. . . . He 
was holding her, all wet and dripping, against his chest 
. . . not such a valiant foxhound, now . . . only a shiver¬ 
ing, whimpering cocker puppy. “Hunting’s the devil, old 
lady, isn’t it?” Julie heard him comforting in the gentle 
way he had with animals. Then abruptly: “What the 
devil can we rub her with, Julie? She might get pneu¬ 
monia out of this nonsense.” 

He looked up to see Julie standing slimly before him 
in a neat pair of gray whipcord breeches. Something 
woolly and black was across her outstretched arms. 

“Give her to me, Mike,” she said. 

Unquestioning, Michael did as he was bid, taking, as 
was his habit, the necessary things for granted, wasting no 
time in foolish fussing. . . . 

Because he saw she wanted it so, he stood over Julie 
without a word, while she rubbed the puppy thoroughly 
with her makeshift towel. 

“Now,” he said, when it was done, “give me your skirt, 
and run like hell—the two of you—for the old house down 
there by the bridge. Johnny Dick’s old Nora’ll catch you 
on the fly.” 

She caught all three of them. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


IJ 3 


2 

Julie woke suddenly from a vivid dream: cold with 
horror, she had stood alone on a windy shore, watching 
Michael fight his way through broken, floating ice, across 
a wide stretch of dark water. ... With a gasp of relief, 
she realized that it was only a dream. Then swiftly, 
on the heels of the realization, flashed the thought of 
Tess—the cause of it. 

In spite of the hard rubbing, there beside the crushed 
juniper bushes—in spite of the sharp run to Johnny Dick’s 
house, the warmth of the fire, and hot milk slashed with 
plenteous brandy, the puppy had shivered and moped, 
depressingly, through the evening. 

With hands well practiced, and sure, Michael had rubbed 
her chest and throat and hot little black nose with cam¬ 
phor liniment, and given her a (loathsome, to Tess) dose 
out of a bottle in the battered medicine chest that stood 
in the corner of his den. Julie had warmed some milk, 
which the little dog adamantly refused to look at, and 
finally, in a nest of warmed blankets before the fire in 
Michael’s den, well protected from possible sparks by the 
old nursery screen from Naomi’s, they had left her, and 
shut the door. 

Julie lay for a moment, without stirring, in Naomi’s 
old four-poster bed. The night was very cold. She could 
see a patch of starry sky cut across by a dark branch of 
hemlock. . . . Would the fire have gone out, in the den? 
She reached forth and switched on the lamp on the table 
beside her. Then throwing off the warm clothes, she slid 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


1 14 

out of bed. . . . Thrusting her feet into furlined slippers, 
she caught up a soft white wrapper of eider-down and got 
quickly into it. 

Halfway across the room she turned back to shut the 
window and pull the clothes up on the bed. In doing so 
she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the dressing 
table. Her face looked small and pale in its cloud of 
unbound tawny hair . . . Like a child, she thought. The 
next minute she had quietly shut the door behind her and 
was making her way noiselessly along the passage and 
down the stairs, past the gaping door of the library. Turn¬ 
ing the corner beyond the dining room, she saw a fine 
line of light showing in the darkness, beneath the door of 
Michael’s den. A good fire, after all, she thought, reas¬ 
sured, and softly opened the door. . . . 

There was a good fire. There was also a light, on the 
table by the hearth. In an old plum-colored dressing gown, 
casting a gigantic shadow on the wall, Michael kneeled 
with his back to Julie, before a nest of blankets near 
the fire. 

“Oh!” breathed Julie involuntarily, and for a moment 
just stood there mutely, on the threshold, holding her 
wrapper closely about her. 

At the low exclamation, Michael twisted about on his 
knees. For a slow minute he stared, in wonder, at the 
naive apparition in white standing there in the dimness 
of the doorway. . . . She was so beautifully made. From 
her small head, with its ruffled ruddy hair, to her bare, 
slender ankles ... so fine and delicate and comely. . . . 

“How is she, Michael?” The delicious throaty voice 
seemed to sing in his ears—stirring swiftly to life something 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


XI 5 

that, until now, had been slumbering. He dragged his 
eyes from the small questioning face, and bent his head 
abruptly over the puppy at his knees. 

“The little lady’s had a chill, of sorts,” he said;—“I was 
just going to heat some milk and get a drop of brandy 
for her.” 

“I’ll do it,” was the brief answer, and turning, Julie 
was swallowed in the darkness of the hall. 

Michael, still on his knees, stared at the empty doorway, 
and was conscious of the faint, cool fragrance of white 
violets, on a sunny bank, in April. ... “I love her . . .” 
he said slowly, incredulously. Suddenly, with curious 
vividness, Naomi’s words flowed back to him—“You were 
always sans peur . . . but— sans reproche, too?” . . . God! 
. . . What an inconceivable position he had innocently— 
stupidly—blundered into! ... He loved his wife. He 
could not tell her that he loved her ... or possess her. 
. . . She cared nothing for him. 

With sublime and abysmal confidence, he had thus bound 
himself. . . . 

In the old kitchen, with hands that trembled, Julie 
did what must be done, while in her mind throbbed the 
intimate thought of Michael in the rich darkness of that 
old plum-colored dressing gown—his hair tousled, kneeling 
there. . . . His surprise, followed by that curiously som¬ 
ber look, as he stared at her standing in the dimness of 
the doorway. ... In a moment, inexplicably, the carefree 
happiness and almost nearness to Michael, of the afternoon, 
was shattered and gone. . . . Her heart was beating 
wildly, in a secret, frightening, breathless way, that seemed 


n6 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


to shake her whole body. . . . She wanted him . . . her 
husband— Ah, God, with what fierceness ... to give— 
and to take— Yes, she was just a primitive woman, facing 
a naked truth . . . old as time. . . . 

As she stood there, her hands, as is the way at such 
times, doing unbidden, without conscious thought, the 
little simple duties to be done, there came a sleepy twit¬ 
ter and chirp from the covered canary cage above the 
pots of geraniums in the window. 

That faint twitter of a sleeping bird awaked was curi¬ 
ously dynamic in its effect upon Julie. She whirled about, 
for the moment unstrung, oversensitive. “Don’t I know 
it!” she said passionately. . . . “I’m a fool—a fool!” she 
got out between shut teeth; and swiftly: “You can’t quit 
now, Julie Byrd.” A sob of sorry laughter escaped her. 
Then, on the heels of it, a strange calm began to fill her 
being. Coldly and impersonally she dealt with herself, and 
with devastating scorn: “You fool!” she whispered— “you’ve 
got to do it—somehow. . . .” 

The milk was heated. She found the brandy, and slowly, 
as one who has survived a soul-shattering experience, and 
finds some inner strength to support her and to cover it 
over, she went back to Michael and the sick puppy. 

Gentle, seemingly remote in her loveliness, she helped 
Michael with the business of feeding the little dog. A sense 
of unreality held her in cool, strong hands . . . aloof. . . . 
She heard herself, as someone apart, laughing softly as she 
knelt beside her husband and stroked the silky head of 
Tess. . . . “She’s better, Mike,” said that other voice . . . 
even as the tears sprang up, swift and stinging, be¬ 
hind her eyes . . . and she saw, in a flash of supreme 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“7 

clarity, the path that lay before her,—to the full, the torture. 

Only a few words were spoken, and those, intimately off¬ 
hand, pertaining to the business of the moment. . . . 
Michael felt the very unself-conscious ease of her to be a 
barrier . . . holding him off . . . pushing him far away 
from all that might be . . . and from that great distance, 
where he stood alone, making her, in his eyes, immeasur¬ 
ably desirable. . . . 

Together, they left Tess at last, and went through the 
old night-quiet house, up the dim stairs. . . . “Damn de¬ 
cent of you,” Michael told her, at the parting of their 
ways . . . “Good-night, Julie. . . “Almost good morn¬ 
ing, Mike,” she said, and left him. 

How could Julie know, as she lay with wide eyes, watch¬ 
ing the cold coming of the dawn, that a third player had 
joined the game being played under Windyhill’s old shel¬ 
tering roof,—a player in deadly earnest, for all that at 
his entering the game the need for playing had actually 
ceased ? 


3 

When Julie came down to breakfast, as fresh and trim 
and sleek of head as though she had slept the night 
through, only Toby was there. Standing before the 
fire in the hall, with a bantering light in his eyes, he 
greeted her on the stairs, as, in those inimitable tales, 
Further Experiences of an Irish R. M., that famous old 
lady, Mrs. Knox, one morning greeted the R. M. himself. 

“‘Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham’” 


n8 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


With a curious and surprising relief that only Toby 
was there, Julie rose spontaneously to meet, halfway, the 
jesting words. 

. . *A good soft pillow’ for my good red head—” she 
caught him up, misquoting over-gravely, and saw the 
ready laughter leap into Toby’s eyes. Swift answering 
mirth brimmed up in hers. She came decorously on down 
the stairs. 

“Mike’s gone off,” Toby announced, as she reached the 
hall. 

“Gone off?” questioned Julie, arrested. 

Toby nodded. “Some early worms to be caught.” 

“Without his breakfast?” 

Toby shrugged. “Can’t tell you that. He poked his 
head in at my door, at cock-crow, and said to tell you he 
had to go—somewhere. I was too sleepy to hear. . . .” 

Julie looked at him for a moment, without apparently 
seeing him, Toby thought. Then: “Don’t wait for me, 
Tobe,” she said, “I’m going to see how Tess is.” 

“She’s better,” he called after her, and made his way 
leisurely to the dining room. 

Tess was better. She wriggled up from her nest of red 
blankets to greet Julie. 

“You brave little old hound,” said the latter, taking the 
puppy up in gentle arms. “You mustn’t go falling into 
any more puddles.” 

After a minute, she put the little cocker back on the 
blankets . . . “Mike’s had you—somewhere, I guess,” she 
observed, looking about with a flicker of amusement. . . . 
“I wonder if he fed you, too.” With her nose tucked 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


119 

into a fold of blanket, Tess looked up with dark expectant 
eyes. 

During breakfast Toby was extremely amusing. Oddly 
enough, Julie found that she was ravenous, and, to old 
Sam’s delight, held her own, even with Toby as lead. 
Apparently with nothing upon their minds, carefree as 
children, they tucked away, between them, an absurd 
amount of scrambled eggs, with accompanying strips of 
crisp bacon . . . toast—more toast, and honey, half a pot¬ 
ful. 

“Well,” said Julie, with a comical lift of her eyes in 
Toby’s direction, as she poured for him his third cup of 
coffee, “I hope you’ll keep till lunch time.” 

“Ditto,” shot out Toby, and they both laughed. 

“I’m going to see Jane,” announced Julie as they lighted 
cigarettes. 

“For God’s sake, take her a book,” chuckled Toby. “She 
was foaming at the mouth over the lot she found herself 
with— She never reads unless she’s sick abed, and that 
only happens in a dog’s age. . . . Josh never opens a 
book. . . . She was wrastling with ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ 
when I left her. Said she thought it was most amusin’.” 

“I can just hear her!” laughed Julie. 

In the hall, sitting with Fanny on the settle, she watched 
Toby get into warm things. 

“Any message for Mike?” he asked, as he tweaked 
a green muffler about his neck and stuffed it into the front 
of an old leather coat. 

Julie appeared to consider. “Mm—no. ... I wonder 
if he fed Tess,” she murmured. Her eyes had gone to the 


120 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


window. She was looking up over the rust-brown slope 
of hillside, and seemed for a moment to have forgotten 
the presence of the man by the door. 

“I’ll ask him,” said Toby abruptly. 

Julie’s eyes came swiftly back. She bit off some retort, 
and then laughed instead. 

“You don’t know where he is—” she reminded him, 
and jumping to her feet, went off, followed by Fanny, to 
the kitchen. 

“I’ll be damned!” swore Toby softly, a thwarted look 
in the eyes that followed her. 

Then suddenly he swung about and opened the door. 


4 

Looking down the luncheon table to Michael, Julie found 
his eyes upon her, in a look of deep abstraction. He did 
not take them away as hers met them, but focussing swiftly, 
asked, as though bringing back his thoughts from a dis¬ 
tance: “You didn’t get fagged out with your night of 
sick-nursing, did you Julie?” 

“Who’s sick?” inquired Toby, lifting his head from 
a close inspection of an old pipe he was filling from a 
striped tobacco pouch. 

“Tess was,” Julie told him with a half smile. Then, her 
glance returning to Michael: “She’s much better, isn’t 
she?” 

“Yes,” said the latter slowly, absently. 

Toby turned once more to Julie. “Were you sitting in 
Mike’s old den there, holding Tess’s paw through the wee 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


121 


hours?” he asked absurdly. But he seemed to want an 
answer. 

“Not through many of them, Tobe,” she answered, 
amused, and then proceeded calmly: “I woke up because 
I had a nightmare,” she gave a droll shiver of recollection. 
“It was horribly cold, and I wondered if the fire had gone 
out down in the den, where we had left Tess. ... I came 
to see. ... It hadn’t, for the very good reason that Mike 
had got there before me, and done something about it. 
. . . He was there, in a lovely plum-colored wrapper, 
kneeling, like a knight of old, keeping vigil. For a little 
while we all three hobnobbed over a bowl of warm milk 
and brandy,” she confided with extreme and childlike 
naivety, looking serenely at Toby. The slow color crept 
up in Michael’s weather-beaten face, and no one saw it 
come,—or go. But Julie, the while, holding onto the triv¬ 
iality of the moment, felt a shaft of surprise, that such a 
blind should be so easy. . . . 

“How was Jane?” asked Michael at last. 

Julie’s eyes filled with swift and smiling reminiscence. 
“Jane, with a cold—” she shook her head—“poor Jane. 
She’s not used to sitting by the embers. Being forced 
to, I mean.” Then sobering suddenly, she broke off to 
ask: “How did you know I was there?” 

“Saw you.” Michael was slowly pushing back his chair 
. . . smiling down the table at Julie. 

“Running pretty mute, Mike,” she suggested. She did 
not ask where, though, and Michael did not offer to 
tell. . . . “May I be excused, Mrs. Cochrane?” he asked 
lightly. “I’ve got to run now, anyway. . . . Coming, 
Tobias?” 


122 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“I don’t—think—I will. . . . There’s wood to be hauled 
. . . ice to be cut . . . dressing—” he cocked a speculative 
eye at Julie—“I think I’ll just turn my back on ’em all— 
and—” slower, more faint of voice, the mimicking proceeded 
—“hop—over—the roof-tops. . . . Want to come along, 
Julie?” 

Without mirth, Michael was watching not Toby but 
Julie. 

For a moment, with ruddy head atilt, dancing devils in 
her eyes, Julie considered Toby. “Mm—I might—” she 
said; and added in a laughing rush, “if Micky weren’t in 
bed with a cold—waiting for a snatch of ‘David Copper- 
field’.” 

“You wretch!” said Toby. 

Michael, standing behind his chair, comfortably big in 
his loose tweed things, caught Julie’s attention. 

“Will you be back to tea?” he asked. 

Julie turned to him eyes in which still lingered the 
smile from their encounter with Toby. Slowly, as their 
glances met, the smile died. Silently she nodded assent. 
Michael stood for a moment longer looking down upon 
her upturned face. Then he swung about abruptly and 
left her. . . . 

With a sharp sense of bewilderment, Julie got to her 
feet . . . What had happened to Michael? 

Toby was making after him for the door. 

“Give my best to old Naomi,” he said over his shoul¬ 
der. . . . 

But Julie, with her back to him, looking down over the 
bleak winter fields to the river, appeared not to have 
heard. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


123 


5 

When Michael and Toby got back at tea time, after an 
arduous two hours in the woods, they found the tea 
kettle carrying on a companionable little purr of conversa¬ 
tion, to the crackle and hiss of the fire . . . solely for the 
benefit of a recovering Tess and the lemon-and-white 
setter. Julie was not there. Fanny, bounding into the 
room, jumped into a chair, and sitting bolt upright, with 
cocked head and twitching nose, surveyed the intriguing 
tea tray. 

For a moment of absurdly acute disappointment, Michael 
paused on the threshold, regarding the lonely tea table. 
Then, with a half-hearted laugh, he walked over and hauled 
Fanny out of the chair, to drop into it himself. Toby 
was already attending to a hot buttered scone. “Wonder 
where your wife is,” he threw out casually. “Is it all right 
to proceed?” 

Michael nodded, in answer to the last remark, and 
leaning over hauled Tess up on to his knees. “Better, old 
girl?” he asked, looking at the puppy’s eyes and nose. 
“Seem to be all right, you rascal.” 

“Well—” drawled Toby, “aren’t you goin’ to eat any¬ 
thing?” 

Before Michael could answer, the telephone rang from 
the desk. Toby whipped about and made for it. Lean¬ 
ing back in the deep chair, with Tess held against his chest, 
Michael swung a crossed leg and covertly watched Toby as 
he took ofi the receiver. He knew who it was going to 
be. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


124 

“Hello!” said Toby’s crisp voice. Michael saw a smile 
flash over his face. “Oh, Julie. . . . Yeah. . . . Wait a 
sec. He’s right here. Want to speak to him? . . . Well, 
all right, what is it? —Over there? I’ll ask him.” Toby 
turned a face lighted with amusement to Michael. “Julie 
says they’re hanging on to her for tea, and want us, too.” 
Then, without waiting for an answer, he was talking again. 
He laughed. “O. K.! We’ll be down in a minute.” He 
hung up the receiver. 

“Come on, old thing—stir your stumps,” he said, coming 
over to where Michael still sat with the puppy in his 
arms. 

Michael only looked lazily up at him and slowly swung 
a long leg. “Think I’ll stay here and cope with some 
of these scones,” he observed. “I’m frightfully comfortable. 
You skip down and bring the lady home.” 

“You lazy dog!” said Toby good-naturedly. “What will 
the lady think?” 

Michael appeared to consider. “We’ll ask her later, per¬ 
haps,” he suggested with a slow smile. . . . “Go on, Tobe. 
I’m staying with Tess.” 

“Stupid!” said Toby with a laugh, and strolled off 
whistling “Home, Sweet Home” between his teeth. A min¬ 
ute later, Michael heard the front door bang, and then saw 
Toby’s figure pass by the window, against the sunset 
light on the hillside. 

“Are we stupid, I wonder, Tess?” he said to the puppy. 
Depositing her upon the rug, he poured himself a cup 
of tea and absently ate two scones. Then pulling his 
pipe out of a deep pocket he filled it slowly and lighted 

it. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


125 

Lying back in the old green armchair—Julie’s chair now 
—he watched the light die out in the sky over the hill, 
while the dusk crept into the firelit room. Fanny, her 
chin on his foot, snored gently as she slept. His pipe 
went out, unsmoked. For minutes he did not move. The 
firelight played over the strong, rugged lines of his face 
and flickered on his long figure sunk deep in the old chair. 
A log broke and an end rolled on to the hearth. A dog 
retreated, circled, and came back, while a thin line of 
smoke from the broken log on the hearth curled up into 
the room. Unheeding, Michael stared out over the darken¬ 
ing line of woods against a paling sky. 

The sudden sharp burr of the telephone shattered the 
silence of the room. Michael stirred and came back to 
earth. He gave a long sigh and got to his feet, much 
to the annoyance of the sleeping Fanny. 

It was Naomi. “Mike?”—the cheerful voice shook 
Michael together. “You were a lazy old curmudgeon 
not to come to tea. But you’ve got to come to dinner. 
. . . There are four duck a-hangin’ in the larder. The 
time has come—” 

. . . “‘To talk of many things’?” cut in Michael, know¬ 
ing he would have to go, or seem peculiar . . . 

His words were drowned in a throaty chuckle from 
Naomi. 

“Right,” he said, and hung up the receiver. 

For a minute, as the firelight caught his eyes there 
came into them the old fighting gleam that Johnny Dick 
would have recognized. He had seen it in France. 
“Right” he said again. And then with a sudden sparkle 
of humor, “My God, Fanny, you’re in the fire. I smell 


126 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


burning fur.” He strode over and got the log back where 
it belonged; then opened a window . . . 

“Whew, dogs! Why didn’t you say something?” he 
asked whimsically. “Come on, the lot of you, to your 
supper.” 


6 

The door shut behind them on a parting shot from the ir¬ 
responsible Dick. Michael and Julie and Toby stood 
three abreast under the cold stars, on the smooth slab of 
stone that served as doorstep for the Sheridans. 

“Amusing fellar, Johnny!” observed Michael, his eyes 
following up the faint wide pathway of the Milky Way. 

“Not as amusing as you were to-night, Mike,” his wife 
took him up surprisingly. And thrusting an arm through 
one of each of the brothers’, “Let’s move on before we 
freeze,” she suggested with deceiving lightness. 

The turf of the hillside was hard as iron beneath their 
feet. The night was still and very cold. From below 
them came a long, hollow boom as a crack ran out into 
the ice on the river, the sound reverberating with a ringing 
twang among the trees on the farther shore. 

“Lord, those ducks were good!” said Toby with appre¬ 
ciation. 

“Old greedy-gut!” laughed Julie. 

“Wonder if Johnny’s as dead broke as he makes out?” 
continued Toby imperturbably. 

“Yes, he’s broke,” came from Michael: “poor old 
Johnny ... he just can’t keep out of the market.” Toby 
gave a grunt, in answer, and then for a moment they 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


127 

climbed in silence. Two shadowy dogs raced past and 
went sliding up before them. 

“Blast it!” said Toby suddenly, drawing his arm away 
from Julie’s— “Got something sharp in my shoe. . . . Go 
on, I’ve got to get it out ’fore I go lame.” He dropped 
on to one knee and began without further ado to untie 
his shoe. 

When Julie looked back in a minute to see if he fol¬ 
lowed, Toby was on his feet again, but turned from 
them, facing the dark loop of frozen river . . . with no 
apparent intention of catching them up. She became 
suddenly conscious that she was walking alone, arm 
in arm, with Michael. Starting to withdraw her arm 
she felt it held tightly for one short second. Then, with 
some casual remark about a cow he meant to buy on the 
morrow, Michael had dropped it, and without a glance in 
her direction was going right on with more farm news. . . . 

He was saying anything—snatching at the first thing that 
came to hand. There beat within him, terrifying in its 
strength, the desire to crush the lovely slim body of this 
girl beside him . . . close ... To gather her up and 
run with her over the starlit hill—away from Toby— 
from everyone. . . . Instead, he must follow what lead 
she gave him,—walk soberly, arm in arm—or not, as the 
case might be—through life. Talking of casual workaday 
things—cows, politics—Johnny Dick and his lost “pile”,— 
anything in the world but the one thing that mattered. . . . 

“. . . Do you think I can?” —What had Julie asked? 
With swift contrition he turned to her. “I know you can,” 
he told her drolly. 

Julie gave a quick catch of laughter,—“You haven’t the 


128 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


vaguest idea what I’m talking about, Mike— Now, have 
you?” 

“No,” he confessed, and was immediately caught up in 
a burst of Julie’s infectious laughter. 

On the hillside below, Toby swung about at the sound. 
“What a pair!” He addressed the stars. “My God, what 
a pair! How can one tell—anything!” 

With a shrug of his shoulders, he walked on slowly up 
the hill. 


7 


“God, how lucky I am!” Ambrose Sheridan smiled 
into the reflection of his wife’s gray eyes in the mirror. 

Reaching up, Naomi took the hand resting on her 
shoulder, and, pulling it across her breast, turned her en¬ 
chanting face to look up at her husband. 

“Kiss me, Sherry,” she said. 

Straightening up again, the big man looked quizzically 
down at his wife. 

Slowly Naomi nodded, a smile coming into her eyes. 

“I know what you’re going to say, Sherry: Where is 
it going to end up, for those two—?” 

“I was going to say those three,” he answered gravely, 
not in the least surprised by his wife’s perspicacity. 

“What do you mean, darling? Sit here, where I can 
see you.” Naomi pulled him down on to the arm of her 
chair. 

“You can’t leave old Toby out of the picture,” said 
Ambrose Sheridan quietly. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


129 


“Toby?” came the incredulous whisper. 

“He loves Julie,” was the simple answer. 

“I believe—you’re right—” the words dropped one by 
one from Naomi’s lips. “Oh, Sherry— How ghastly!” 

“What is old Mike up to, Naomi? A girl like Julie— 
fascinating—full of—oh, you know what I mean.” 

“Allure?” suggested Naomi wickedly. 

“I suppose that’s it.” Sherry grinned, then sobered,— 
“To stick her off in your old room,” he went on, gathering 
force as he went. “What’s going on under that flame of 
hair—behind those long green eyes of Julie’s? Do you 
know, at all, Naomi?” 

Slowly she shook her head. “No, Sherry dear—I can’t 
remotely guess.” 

“Well—something is, and don’t you forget it,” he told 
her vehemently. “It wouldn’t be too out of line if she 
loved old Mike. He’s not without attraction himself— 
inscrutable devil!” 

“Mike’s as square as the Lord Himself!” defended his 
sister with some spirit. 

“Never said he wasn’t, old girl— Hold your horses a 
minute. I’m just inferring he’s a bit stupid, that’s all. . . . 
He doesn’t know the first thing about women.” 

“And you do?” put in Naomi drolly . . . 

A slow smile crept up into Ambrose Sheridan’s eyes. “I 
know one of ’em pretty well,” he said. 

“What can we do about it? That’s the question, 
Sherry.” 

“Damn well keep our hands off everyone but Toby.” 

“And that’s going to be my job? —Well, I won’t stick 
at it, darling, if that’s what it comes to . . .” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


130 

In the room next to them someone burst into a muffled 
fit of coughing. 

“Sit tight, I’ll dose him.” Ambrose got up from the 
arm of the chair. “Hang on, Micky!” he called, “I’m 
coming.” 

“You blessed old thing,” said Naomi; “the paregoric’s 
in the bathroom.” 

She watched the tall figure in a dark silk wrapper dis¬ 
appear into the bathroom, then turning away she stared 
for a moment with unseeing eyes at her reflection in the 
mirror— 

“He was born under an unlucky star, poor boy,” she 
said at last, and then, unaccountably: “Poor Julie!” And 
quite a time later, with a sorry little smile: “Poor old Sir 
Galahad!” 


Chapter Six 


i 

F OR a week the frost held, the temperature hovering 
around zero, until the fields were like iron and the 
ice on the river crackled, with long snap and running 
boom, through the night, as the moon waned to a white 
feather that rose in the ice-cold dawn, above the dark trees 
on the hill. 

At breakfast that morning Toby had laughingly asked 
Julie if she would ride with them to an outlying wood 
beyond the river. Michael had shot a look at him and 
answered crisply, “My God, Toby,—it’s two below!” And 
Julie had bitten off words of spontaneous acquiescence, 
bending quickly to hide her bewilderment in caressing 
fond Tess who was crouched against her leg. Toby had 
made no further suggestion. . . . 

She had watched the two brothers go off muffled to the 
eyebrows, and now, in a mood of strange desolation, stood 
at the window up in her room, with unseeing eyes, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


132 

staring into the depths of the big hemlock, while her 
thoughts roved miserably, and in deep bewilderment, over 
the past week. . . . Michael had not for a moment over¬ 
looked or neglected the smallest thing for her comfort; 
but it seemed to Julie that the thing he had once so 
freely given—amusing and frank companionship—he now 
withheld. As though, she thought with a sorry laugh, 
he were looking after a little child; scrupulously carefully 
—utterly impersonal. Only now and then, as a survival 
of those first days, would come some flash of humor. She 
fancied sometimes that he was glad Toby was there .. . . 
that he need not be alone with her. She had never 
thought of Michael as seeking after his kind or being par¬ 
ticularly dependent upon his fellows. Now he grasped, 
with curious alacrity, the chance to go to the Sheridans’ 
—the Challoners’—to have Johnny Dick come there—any 
diversion. 

Could it be because of her . . . that having a woman 
about, even in such an offhand and free capacity, palled? 
—had become, so soon, a nuisance? Remembering, then, 
countless things which Michael did for her—thought for 
her, each day—in further bewilderment, she put this doubt 
away, as futile. Then what was it? What made him 
suddenly seem so detached, as though his thoughts were 
miles away? 

Julie turned abruptly from the window, where her 
thoughts had become woven into the branches of the 
big hemlock tree, and her eyes were caught by patient 
Tess, lying like a small mat at her feet, gazing expectantly 
up. 

“Well, old lady—” she burst out in a flash of fighting 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


I 33 

spirit, “God knows it’s a hard one—but we’ll follow his 
lead!” And forthwith, getting into the warmest things 
she could find, she plumped an unwilling Tess (the puppy 
still had a running nose) into her wing chair, pulled it 
round in front of the fire, shut the door and ran down 
the stairs. 

It certainly was cold. Julie drew in the clear sharp air 
with delight, and with a half amused, half sorry laugh 
at the thought of Michael’s vehement: “My God, Toby 
—it’s two below!” 

A great gabble of garrulous cawing was going on in 
the pine trees at the curve of the lane. It hushed for a 
moment, and then, with one raucous, long-drawn caw, 
three ragged crows flapped forth and took their inconse¬ 
quent flight over the hill to the far woods. Julie fol¬ 
lowed in their direction. 

It really was frightfully cold. Walking was one thing; 
riding would have been quite another. Michael had been 
right, she conceded with curious warmth of gratitude, as 
she walked quickly on up the hill, her heavy hobnailed 
shoes making a little hollow thumping sound on the 
frozen ground. She climbed over the wall into the road 
at the top of the hill, catching her skirt, as she went, on a 
sharp twig of wild cherry. Stooping to free it, she let 
out a good round “Damn!” for the hole left in the black 
tweed. And straightening up found herself face to face 
with Jane. —Jane, on foot! 

“Damn what?” Jane’s laugh seemed to snap and 
crackle in the extreme cold. 

“Damn you —for laughing,” chuckled Julie, her spirits 
rising at the sight of the woman before her. “I tore my 


i 34 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

skirt,” she explained. And then, “Are all your horses 
dead?” 

“You might well ask,” replied Jane blandly. “The vet 
said a short walk to-day, if it were warmer. . . . I’m 
keeping to my part—even if the weatherman neglected 
his.” 

“Jane—you’re an idiot!” wailed Julie. “You ought to 
be shot, coming out on a day like this!” 

“I’d have turned into an idiot, and shot myself, if I’d 
stayed cooped up in the house another minute.” 

“Well,” laughed Julie, “let’s move on . . . somewhere. 
I can’t feel my feet. Where were you off to?” 

“Oh—just hoping for diversion.” Jane gave a droll 
grimace. “Let’s go to the stables, and see the brothers 
Cochrane. ... I liked that book you brought me,” she 
added inconsequently. “Forgotten the name; but the old 
boy knew the country, all right.” 

“He was supposed to.” Julie grinned delightedly. “ ‘Old 
boy’!—dear Thomas Hardy. You’ll be the death of 
me, Jane, over books.” 

They were walking now along the frozen ruts in the 
road, on their way to the farm barn. “Don’t hurry me, 
Julie,” said Jane; “It gets into my pipes and makes me 
wheeze, damn it!” Then, with an abrupt leap from the 
subject at hand: “Where are Mike and Toby?” 

Julie indicated, with a vague gesture, the far line of 
woods across the river. “Somewhere off there.” She 
gave a rueful smile and looked at Jane. “Left me sup¬ 
posedly hugging the fire. Toby suggested I should go 
a-riding with them, and Mike said—‘God, no’—or ‘My 
God,’ or something vehement, and told Toby it was two 
below. . , 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


*35 


Jane gave her husky, catching chuckle. “And so—” 
she took up the story—another follower of Somerville and 
Ross—“you came out alone—‘to soak the cold’, like old 
Mrs. Knox.” 

Julie nodded, her eyes filling with quiet mirth. “With¬ 
out even Mullins to ram a bonnet onto me,” she con¬ 
cluded. 

Jane shrugged a pair of tweed-clad shoulders. “Aren’t 
men idiots, the dears?” she asked, hugely tolerant, of the 
world at large. “Let ’em think they’re looking after you, 
when really, all the time, you’re looking after them! 
That’s my motto. They’re just like children, Julie— 
the best of ’em. But you can’t let ’em see you think so,” 
she ended sagely. 

“I rather think you’re right, Jane,” agreed Julie with 
a slow smile. 

“I’ve got Toby’s pipe in my pocket this minute.” Here 
Jane shook her head disparagingly . . . “Julie—the pipes 
I’ve salvaged, in my day—and from the most inconceivable 
places, my dear—would fill a hogshead. . . . And when 
you bring the things back to ’em they are invariably fallen 
upon like a long-lost brother. . . . But have they ever 
been looked for, in the meantime? Never! 

“What do they do when they live alone, losing collar 
buttons, and specs, and pipes . . . living in a clutter the 
neatest of ’em never seem to mind, or even notice?— 
God knows!” she finished with mild benevolence—“7 
don’t.” And she burst suddenly into a fit of coughing. . . . 

“You really are a goose, Jane, to be out to-day,” Julie 
told her. 

“Well—aren’t we going in, this very second?” 

“A barn’s no place, either,” put in Julie, with reason. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


136 

“A barn’s the best place—under a roof—on God’s earth,” 
croaked Jane . . . “And there’s that long-legged husband 
of yours this minute, crossing the yard with a pack o’ dogs 
at his heels.” 

Michael saw them coming, and diverging from his 
original purpose, whatever it might have been, swerved 
for the gate of the yard and met them at the edge of the 
farm lane. 

“Mornin’, Mike,” got in Jane first, “I’ve just been soundly 
trounced for pokin’ my nose into the open. ... I seek 
shelter, my lord,” she went on, “beneath yon branching 
roof-tree . . . there to rest my fragile frame in the homely 
warmth from hay and fragrant-breathing kine. . . .” 

“You’re hopeless, Jane!” laughed Michael. 

He turned back with them, walking toward the barn 
beside Julie. “So you lit out into the cold, after all,” he 
said, looking down, half amused, at the fur-capped head, 
with the chin buried in a soft black muffler. Julie nodded; 
but it was Jane who answered briskly for her. 

“Don’t you know Julie well enough, Mike, not to expect 
mere weather to hold her under a roof? —Was it very 
bad, a-horse, this morning?” 

Michael, apparently not heeding Jane at all, was looking 
at his wife, his usual sense of humor flown to the winds. 

“Did you want to ride with us?” he asked soberly. . . . 
“Why didn’t you say you liked zero weather, Julie?” 

A sudden smile flashed over the girl’s thin face, at the 
gravity of his. “I thought you knew,” she answered de¬ 
murely . . . “and it’s lovely to be looked after, Mike.” 

Lord, how fascinating she was! thought Michael, for¬ 
getting to answer . . . naughty, like that. . . . 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


*37 

“Aren’t you going to open your door to your lady 
guests?” twitted Jane, standing in a mock-forlorn attitude 
of waiting before the big barn door. 

In a moment of extreme annoyance—at the whole world, 
and all the people in it—Michael brushed past Jane, slid 
open the door and pushed it to again behind them. 

“Heavens, how good it smells!” murmured Jane, sniffing 
happily the warm scent of hay and horses. She drifted 
off down the wide runway between the box stalls and the 
huge supporting beams of the hayloft. 

Julie looked up at Michael and in swift understanding 
smiled straight into his eyes. In the surprising intimacy 
of that look, quick as thought, Michael spoke. 

“You’re a brick, Jude,” he said, unconsciously using her 
childhood nickname. 

“Show me the bull calf, Mike,” was the unexpected 
answer. Julie was suddenly afraid—for herself. 

Michael had the blank feeling that for some reason a 
door had been quietly shut in his face. “Yes,” he said 
crisply, unreasonably hurt—for what ? And abruptly, 
without looking at Julie, he started off down the length of 
the barn. 

With the miserable sensation that to save herself she had 
been ridiculously curt to Michael, Julie walked slowly 
after him along the rows of boxes, past the ladder going 
up to the hayloft, to the pen where the little bull calf 
lived. 

Jane was already there, her shoulders hunched, leaning 
on the top of the door. 

“I’d like to spend the day in here with this nice woolly 
thing,” she observed, lifting amused eyes to Michael. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


* 3 % 

“Go to it, Jane!” He turned lazily, with easy good- 
humor, to his wife. “What do you say, Julie?” 

“Perfect!” she agreed . . . and felt how hopelessly little 
she really knew the man whom the world called her hus¬ 
band. 


2 

Beyond the firelight the room melted into shadowy dusk. 
Once, as a flame licked upward, a ruddy light flickered 
for a moment on the backs of books, picking out gleams 
of gold and red and somber brown . . . played over the 
sprays of yellow freesia on the low table, glinting on the 
copper jar that held them . . . then sinking, to faintly 
burnish for a moment the brass on the collar of a dog 
sleeping by the hearth, gave a final flutter and fell to whis¬ 
pering drowsily alone. . . . 

Deep in the armchair that was now Julie’s, Michael 
stretched gaitered legs among the sleeping dogs. For a 
long time he had not stirred. Over and over in his head 
the same thought turned and twisted, seeking for a way out 
. . . and came back always to the thing from which it 
sought to escape,—Julie—Julie—Julie! . . . What a blind 
fool he had been! With what sublime confidence he had 
walked into the trap set by his own stupid hands! ... In 
his arrogance and stupidity, had he really thought that a 
man and a woman could do what he had so casually pro¬ 
posed, without one of them getting hit? . . . What if, 
instead of him, Julie had been that one! Christ! what an 
escape for her! . . . Staring before him into the shadows 
beyond the hearth, he saw it all again . . . that white- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


139 

clad figure with unbound ruddy hair . . . Julie’s lovely 
startled eyes resting upon him as he knelt by Tess upon 
the hearth. . . . Once more there seemed to swim about 
him the fragrance of white violets in the spring— 

“Why, Michael!” came softly from the doorway. Slowly 
still, as though it were part of the dream, Michael turned 
his head. . . . She was actually standing there in the 
light of the doorway. It was not a dream. 

She did not tell him that it was late, or remind him that 
Pip and Johnny Dick were coming. . . . Michael re¬ 
membered now, with sharp contrition, that such was the 
case . . . For a hushed moment, as though fearing that 
she might intrude, she stood there. So enchanting, so 
unaware . . . and strangely gentle. A soft black dress 
clung to her in long folds, simple and pure in line as 
her own slender body; pearls—her mother’s pearls—were 
about her round white throat. Her head, with its smooth 
burnished hair, was tilted, half in doubt. 

She came on into the room, and stood looking down at 
Michael. 

“Is anything wrong, Mike?” she asked. And some¬ 
how the words seemed to Michael perilously dear and 
intimate and tender. . . . “You wouldn’t want to tell 
me, perhaps, if it were,” she said quickly. 

Michael had got to his feet. A terrible need for her 
swept over him, and after it the greater need for her 
protection—from it. Out of that, looking into her face, 
he spoke—almost lightly. “I think I was asleep, Julie,” 
he appeared to confess simply— “Just an old, ancient 
countryman, you know.” 

He saw that he had hurt her . . . thrown her friendly 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


140 

helping hand aside. Furious at his own clumsiness, feeling 
as though he had hit a child, he could not even explain. 
. . . Good God, he couldn’t hurt her just because— 
Spontaneously he laid his hands on her shoulders . . . 

“You’re lovely in the firelight, Julie,” he said. 

“The firelight is kind, Michael,” she answered, and 
moving away saw that Johnny Dick stood in the door¬ 
way. 

“Oh—” he whipped out, seeing the pair in the unlighted 
room, and took an involuntary step backward. 

“Ouch!” came Pip’s voice. And then: “You great bar¬ 
barian! . . . You’ve stamped all over my new dancing 
pump,” the boy mourned drolly. “Scram!” And thrust¬ 
ing past Johnny’s lanky form, Pip peered into the room. 

“What’s the gloom?” he exclaimed. And at the sight 
of his face Julie laughed. With a jolt, life flew from the 
serious to the ridiculous. Pip boldly flicked on a light. 
“Where’s Toby?” he asked; “Don’t you fellars expect 
us to eat here?” 

“Yes—yes— yes" laughed Michael. “And why not?” 

“Well—” Pip hunched his shoulders, “you don’t seem 
to be very—er—expectant looking.” 

Michael gave an amused grunt. “I’ll get Toby—and 
brush up. Tell Sam to wrastle some ice and lemon 
juice.” He left them, and they heard him dash along the 
hall and up the stairs, two steps at a time. 

“Go on, Johnny: get the stuff,” urged Pip, “I want to 
play a new tune to Julie.” 

Johnny Dick grinned affably and went off. Pip whisked 
Julie over to the piano. “It’s pretty smooth,” he said, 
and thrust a garish sheet of music on to the rack. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


i 4 i 

From Michael’s den, where he had been delving over 
some farm accounts, Toby came strolling to the sound of 
the piano. “ ‘Can’t we talk it over . . . before it’s over?’ ” 
His nice baritone joined in from the doorway. 

To the cool clinking accompaniment of a shaken bowl 
of cracked ice, Johnny Dick took up the refrain as he 
came back across the hall from the dining room. 

Michael stopped for a moment, on the stairs, to listen. 
“My God, how I’d li\e to . . .” he muttered, and came on 
slowly down. 


3 

The old paneled dining room held a merry company. 
From above the fireplace, where burned a splendid fire, 
Great-grandfather Tobias Cochrane in his black stock 
and high rolling collar, looked down on the long table, 
with its brass claw feet, that Duncan Phyfe had made for 
him, where now his great-grandson’s wife serenely presided. 
Contageously amusing, without apparently the shadow 
of a care, Michael kept the ball of conversation well 
rolling. 

Happy in the belief that somehow Michael had stepped 
back into the old friendly companionship of the past 
weeks, gratefully accepting such, without question, and 
following in his steps, Julie little guessed how her delicious 
and shimmering gaiety was a further thrust that spurred 
him to cover his thoughts with a cloak of raillery ... or 
knew, as she turned with ready laughter lighting her 
eyes, in response to some sally from Johnny Dick, how 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


142 

utterly desirable . . . and how hopelessly far away . . . 
she seemed to him at that moment. 

Since before the loss of her father, whom she had 
adored, Michael had not seen Julie like that. To-night 
she was the old, sparkling, unexpected Julie; and watching 
her once, as for the moment all other eyes were turned upon 
her, held by some flash of humor from her lips, it came to 
Michael, with sudden and curious certainty, that he had 
loved her all the time. ... If he had only known! . . . 
And then, looking away from them all, with a brief gay 
smile for him, Julie had swept him, on a little jet of laugh¬ 
ter, into the happy inconsequence of the moment. He 
felt helpless to withstand her. —For the moment he did 
not care what happened. . . . 

“What was that jig you were knocking out, Pip?” he 
asked. 

. . . “‘Can’t we talk it over? . . . Let’s talk it over’ 

. . .” Johnny Dick began to hum in a cracked tenor. 

“He’s tryin’ to croon his way into Julie’s heart,” mur¬ 
mured Pip wickedly, lifting his eyes just long enough 
from the splendid bunch of grapes before him to direct 
a humorous look at his uncle. 

“You’ll be well named, me lad, if you swallow another 
thing,” Johnny broke off to say good-naturedly . . . 
“You’ll be croonin’ to your Ma —for a dose o’ ginger.” 

Pip grinned and fed a grape to Fanny. 

“Let’s all dance to-night!” he suggested, looking up en¬ 
gagingly at Julie. . . . “Get Ma to come over . . . Dad’s 
crazy about jazz, too. . . . ‘Rudy’, over there, can lead 
the orchestra. . . .” 

Toby gave a crow of laughter. “Go ring ’em up,” he 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


x 43 

said, and with a chuckle, “I haven’t danced for a year!” 

Mutely raising his eyebrows, Pip sent a mischievous 
questioning glance down the table to Michael. 

“I’m game,” said the latter, “if Julie is.” 

Pip tilted his head with comical suddenness in Julie’s 
direction. She nodded, her eyes twinkling assent. 

Slapping down his napkin, the boy got swiftly to his 
feet. “Hot cha! Don’t I love Saturday nights P’ he let 
out gleefully, and went off singing in his lovely high 
voice—“ ‘Can’t we talk it over . . . ?’ ” 

“Cigarette, Julie?” asked Toby, and watching the girl’s 
enchanting face bend over for a light knew how much 
he wanted to dance with her. 


4 

Julie and Pip, crowded on to the narrow piano stool, 
were playing a duet. Johnny Dick, having pried the som¬ 
nolent Fanny from the leather armchair and slipped into 
its capacious depths, was carrying on a heated defense of 
his speculating methods to Toby. The latter, slewed about 
on the farther end of the fire bench, leaning a strong curve 
of back to the heat of the fire, lazily shifted his balance 
now and then to free one of the hands that nursed a bony 
knee, and removing his pipe from his mouth, with well- 
turned jibe, and huge enjoyment, prodded his friend to 
some further excess of rhetorical argument. Michael had 
gone off to get a bottle of old brandy for Johnny. 

The firelight flickered peacefully over the two setters 
sleeping back to back on the hearth. The lamp on the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


144 

table beyond Johnny cast a pool of light on the old waxed 
boards of the floor. Curled up on a pile of neatly folded 
rugs by the bookcase, where she had flung herself with 
as much relief and sense of possession as though all her 
short life she had waited breathlessly for that moment, 
slept small black Tess, gently snoring. 

The duet ended in a crescendo of crashing cords from 
Pip, in the bass, to a final hurried trickle from Julie, in 
the treble. “You’re rushing me so!” Julie’s voice went up 
with the notes and burst into helpless laughter. 

“I know it,” confessed Pip, now doubled over between 
sobs of laughter. 

“Well?” spoke a cheerful voice from the doorway. Tess 
woke and sent forth a sharp, agitated bark. Pip straight¬ 
ened up and slid off the bench, hauling Julie with him 
on to her feet. 

In a dress of soft, gray chiffon, that billowed about her 
and floated out behind like wings, Naomi came on, with 
amused eyes, into the room. 

Voices sounded in the hall. 

“Julie, my dear, they all would come—” Naomi gave a 
low laugh—“horse, foot, and artillery. You caught us on 
a Saturday night. —It was too good . . .” 

Toby had come up and given his sister a brotherly bear 
hug and rousing kiss. . . . “Next!” said Johnny with a 
grin. Pip gave a whoop and darted out into the hall, fol¬ 
lowed by the wildly barking Tess. 

“My God, what a hullabaloo! Come on, Johnny,” urged 
Toby, his blue eyes, as was their wont in intense amuse¬ 
ment, narrowing, then opening wide to uncover swiftly- 
come sparks of devilment. With a “Forrad, little bitch!” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


145 

to the expectant Fanny—“Hunt’s on!” he whirled the re¬ 
luctant Johnny forth from the room. 

“Come on,” said Julie, her eyes brimming with laugh¬ 
ter, “Let’s go!” 

“You’re the right wife for a Cochrane,” answered a 
delighted Naomi; and, as they went: “You know the 
children . . . Tony Barrel—Tom’s ‘Fidus’ ... his young 
sister Jinny . . . and Vi Buckley—old John Buckley’s 
grandchild. . . . Spending Sunday,” she enlightened. 

“You’re a wonder, Naomi,” was Julie’s answer . . . and 
Tim, in a pair of older-brother long trousers, was upon 
them—the out-rider. “I came too.” He fairly beamed at 
Julie. “Damn hard luck for Micky he couldn’t go out 
yet . . .” 

“Micky’s cold didn’t stop his trousers from coming,” 
murmured his mother drolly. 

Tim only grinned. 

Then Julie was shaking hands with a slip of a girl 
in yellow, with a small piquant face and short, nut-brown 
curls, and, with a quick shock of surprise, hearing herself 
addressed as “Mrs. Cochrane.” 

Naomi lay back in the chair near the fire, where some 
minutes before she had sunk down with the laughing 
protest to young Tony Barrel, that she could dance no 
more. It had been a gay and entertaining hour, and 
now, in the glow of comfortable fatigue, and a sort of 
serene detachment, she watched with tranquil eyes the 
progress of the dance. 

. . . Curiously barbaric, this modern dancing . . . Tom 
—her nice big Tom, growing to look so absurdly like 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


146 

Sherry—would seem to be chained to one spot in the cor¬ 
ner, his arms about the slim yellow figure of Vi Buckley, 
in the surprisingly possessive manner that appeared to 
mean nothing, thought Naomi helplessly, to these frank, 
easy-going young. The nut-brown curls were tucked con¬ 
fidingly against Tom’s young shoulder, his own sandy 
head resting upon it. What—thought Naomi with a stab 
of commiseration—did mothers of girls do, these days? 
Why weren’t such poor women’s heads white, one and 
all? ... Extraordinary times— Untrammelled, incon¬ 
sequent . . . Speed—ever new and more exotic diversion 
—sought after with enough energy to build up a nation, 
rather than pull it down. And yet, at heart, they were 
strangely pathetic, the children of this generation—grop¬ 
ing, unsure—with all their apparent outward cocksuredness 
—for what? they hardly knew. They skimmed serenely 
over the surface, skating on the thinnest ice, as imper¬ 
turbably as though water, deep and cold, were not be¬ 
neath. They lolled and smoked, with carmine lips, and 
slung out crisp, unintelligible phrases, in bald frankness, 
on subjects that their grandmothers would have blushed 
to even think upon in the privacy of their own rooms 
. . . And yet, out of it all, Naomi asked herself honestly, 
hadn’t there come some good? Had not the agelessness 
... all ages melting somehow into one . . . brought the 
children nearer to their parents? . . . made a stronger 
bond of frankness between . . . torn down false reserve 
and foolish inhibitions? She thought suddenly, with a 
warm sense of happiness, of their own young—hers and 
Sherry’s. “If they are straight, and honorable, and loyal 
... we can’t buck the times in the little surface things,” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


M7 

she decided wisely, and with extraordinary resiliency her 
thoughts swung back to the concrete moment. 

Michael was playing the piano. From where she sat 
Naomi could watch him. With deep affection her eyes 
dwelt upon his broad shoulders and fine head. He was 
looking straight before him,—thinking his own thoughts, 
was her swift conclusion . . . Unaware of any eyes upon 
him, a certain somber abstraction seemed to have caught 
him up and away from them all. In spite of his splendid 
strength, his bigness of body and mind, there was about 
Michael, sometimes, something that plucked at Naomi’s 
heart. She felt it now, unreasonably. He could carry 
a hurt, hidden away like that little Spartan boy of old— 
and could laugh and never speak of it. He had been like 
that, with physical things, always . . . Such times, long 
ago, flashed back to her now. . . . Once, only, under 
strong inward pressure, he had burst forth harshly to her 
about a thing that had happened in the war . . . and 
she had seen then, with a poignancy that appalled her, what 
he had suffered, untelling. . . . Now, to-night—was there 
something? He turned his head suddenly, and their eyes 
met. Across the room, he smiled in that sudden engaging 
way he had. On a flood of relief she asked herself why she 
should have had such dreary thoughts of old Michael 
. . . And just then Julie and Toby came between them, 
dancing together. With the little mental jab of a thing 
quickly remembered, her conversation with Sherry came 
rushing back upon her. Unbelieving, bewildered, her 
eyes followed the pair of dancers. . . . He was ridicu¬ 
lously good-looking—this younger brother of hers and 
Michael’s . , . Saved, thought Naomi with quick humor, 


i 4 8 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

by a certain natural and unconsciousness recklessness—a 
naive unawareness. Young dare-devil he had always 
been—caring little for consequences that inevitably fol¬ 
lowed some rash act done on the spur of the moment; and, 
with equal nonchalance, taking the good things of life, 
along with the knocks. And yet—generous to a fault 
—if some thoughtless act of his hurt another, ruefully 
and ingenuously he sought to make amends. He lacked, 
entirely, Michael’s capacity for endurance, and his strong 
reserve. What would happen, she asked herself in swift 
concern, if Toby loved Julie—and Michael—? Did Julie 
care for Michael? If not—? Watching them dancing 
now together, those two, she felt a pang of apprehension 
. . . and then, her eyes upon Julie, forgot to think. There 
was an effortless grace about the girl’s dancing, as in what¬ 
ever she did,—a certain strength, that could endure: of 
that the older woman had had good proof. There was 
about her, too, a subtle aloofness, that somehow added 
to her charm. To-night, in that clinging black dress, with 
the pearls about her neck . . . her provocative half smile 
and beautiful smooth head of flaming hair, she was rather 
thrilling . . . with the added fascination—to a man— 
Naomi shrewdly realized, of being utterly unaware, and 
careless of it. . . . She had said something to Toby. He 
laughed, and Naomi saw him look quickly down at her 
face. But Julie’s eyes had caught Naomi’s. They were 
smiling in curious serenity, quite oblivious of Toby. — 
Why didn’t Mike dance with his wife? Naomi felt a 
thrust of surprising irritation. And even as she did, at 
that very moment Michael abruptly stopped playing, right 
in the middle of a phrase. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


149 

“Damn it!” swore Johnny Dick softly, at Naomi’s el¬ 
bow, “I was just going to ask you to step out.” 

“Even a worm will turn, Dick,” murmured a genial 
voice from before the hearth. It was Sherry. There came 
a short spatter of clapping from the two young couples. 
Drawn a little apart now from Toby, who was close to 
the piano, Julie was looking at Michael. He suddenly 
put out his hand and caught Toby by the arm, then got 
swiftly to his feet. “Play something, Tobe, will you,” he 
said briefly, “I want to dance with Julie.” He spoke as 
though only those three were in the room. 

Without a word, or a glance in Julie’s direction, Toby 
sat down at the piano . . . All the laughter had died out of 
his face. He waited for a moment, then crashed into the 
tune that had been responsible for the evening, “ ‘Can’t 
we talk it over . . . before it’s over?’ ”... They were all 
singing the catching words. All but Michael and Julie, 
who, apparently heedless of the song, and apart, danced 
unsmiling. 

“Sherry—” said Naomi to the man who had dropped 
down on to the arm of her chair, “I’m afraid.” 

“Can’t we talk it over?” he hummed softly. 

With swift answering humor, Naomi looked up into the 
face above. “Yes, thank God, we can,” she said; but her 
soft laughter had a shake in it. 


Chapter Seven 


i 

T HEY were burning a great pile of brush at the edge 
of the cart track that ran along by the river, below 
the Sheridans’. For some minutes now Julie had 
been watching, with self-absorbed, troubled eyes, the smoke 
that rose incredibly blue against the hemlocks on the 
farther shore. Before her on the old table she used as a 
desk, in the room that had once been Naomi’s, lay a sheet 
of paper. “Windyhill” was written at the top, and the 
date: February 17th. Except for that, the sheet was empty. 
Two yellow roses stood in a small crooked jar of bubbly 
green glass on the corner of the desk. She drew them 
absently near and sniffed their spicy fragrance. Then 
slowly, still absently, she pushed them back, and resting 
her elbows on the surface of the table, her chin supported 
in her cupped palms, she stared once more somberly before 
her down to the great pile of burning brush. 

What could she say to Martha Holland? this girl who 

150 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


151 

had been her friend for so long—who was now married— 
happily married, there in England. Nothing! She had 
nothing, she thought bleakly, that could possibly be an 
answer to that jubilant letter of congratulation. 

Not given to over-much analyzing of her thoughts and 
feelings, and still less to talking of them, in the past, when 
such had been thrust upon her, it had been to some def¬ 
inite end. Action had been the outcome. Swift and 
fearless action, upon some clear decision, was natural to 
her. Life, she well knew, held hardship and sorrow—the 
loss of those you loved. And these, when they came to 
her, she had met with courage. For eight months after the 
death of her father she had lived on in the old house by 
the brook. Her heart filled with an anguish of loneliness 
for the man who was gone, she had, nevertheless, with 
unconscious fortitude faced the future. And, if some¬ 
times she quailed inwardly, she went about the daily task 
of life with a certain serenity that came from a clear-eyed 
facing of things, a knowledge gained from living with 
that keen scholar, Julian Byrd: that giving the best you 
knew to something bigger than you—that power would 
use it for the best. . . . 

And into that life Michael had broken, asking casually 
this impossible thing. . . . Suddenly her clarity of vision 
had become blurred. Blind and deaf to all she should have 
known—reckless of the consequence for Michael and for 
herself, she had done this incredible thing. . . . 

For a few weeks life had swung along over a tranquil 
surface. A surface that, because of its cloak of frank and 
happy comradeship on Michael’s part she had accepted 
with a certain gratitude—for even that quarter loaf. And 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


152 

then had come that afternoon on the hill with him. . . . 

Sitting now before an empty sheet of paper, Julie stirred 
with a restless motion and suddenly covered her eyes with 
her hands. A cold, wind-swept hillside rose before her 
mind’s eye. She felt once more the pressure of Michael’s 
arm against hers as he stood beside her . . . knew again 
that surprising flash of realization, that perilous nearness— 
to what? . . . then Michael’s arm across her shoulders— 
his words: “Look! ... a fox!” and the joyous dash, 
downhill that followed . . . the saving of little Tess. And, 
at the last, Michael’s turning to her for help . . . and 
afterwards, his quick solicitude for her—and for the 
puppy. . . . Her unreasoning and fearful happiness there 
in Johnny Dick’s house flooded back to her now . . . and 
then that night in Michael’s den! . . . What had hap¬ 
pened? She had found there a man she did not faintly 
know—as though between them had come some intangible 
barrier . . . that now grew ever higher and more impene¬ 
trable as the days went past. A barrier Michael seemed 
not even remotely to be aware of . . . that she could not 
speak of. —What was there to speak about? A thing as 
airy and intangible as mist—and yet— 

She dropped her hands from her face in an abrupt 
gesture of desperation. God in Heaven! she had done her 
best. —But it was not good enough. A little spurt of 
anger flared up at her impotence. Then her eyes travel¬ 
ing unhappily, hardly seeing, off down the hill, suddenly 
focussed on a moving object. A blue farm wagon piled 
high with branches of evergreen, and drawn by a plodding 
chestnut farm horse, had come out from behind the Sheri¬ 
dans’. A huge, fair-haired man—he wore not hat—Chris, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


*53 

the Swede, walked at the horse’s head, leading him along 
the river road toward the pile of burning brush. In sharp 
reaction from the maze of thoughts that had been hers for 
the last few minutes, Julie’s mind leaped to the object of 
the moment. She wanted some branches of hemlock. 
There below, moving slowly to their doom, went more 
than she could use. . . . 

Three minutes later, in a leather coat of Michael’s which 
she had snatched from the hall, with Fanny and Tess in 
tow, she was making her way down the hillside over the 
thin covering of snow that had fallen in the night, toward 
the fire of burning brush. She arrived there before Chris 
and stood for a moment watching the flames that crackled 
and licked up between the branches and twigs. In a sudden 
draft of air the smoke bent down and drifted past her. 
Its sharp aromatic tang filling her nostrils, her mind swept 
clear by the flight down the hill through the frosty air, for 
a minute she forgot everything but the joy of watching 
blown smoke drifting upwards into a sky where sweeping 
mare’s tail misted over the westering sun. 

Creaking, to the crunch of plodding hoofs, the blue 
cart drew nearer. Julie turned with a friendly nod for 
the Swede. “Good afternoon, Chris,” she said, and moved 
toward the big, patient farm horse. Standing with her 
hand rubbing gently the horse’s nose, she spoke: “Are you 
going to burn all these hemlock branches?” 

Chris, ever chary of words, nodded slowly, and throwing 
the reins over the old horse’s rump went round and began 
to pull off the crisp green boughs. Julie followed him. 

“I would like to keep some of them, please, Chris,” she 
said. “I want to put them on my father’s grave. To- 


*54 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


morrow would have been his birthday,” she ended simply. 

The big man stopped and looked at her for a minute, 
while a sort of dumb compassion flooded into his wide 
face. “My own Fader ben lost in Yanuary, in deep sea,” 
he burst forth with the suddenness of one who speaks but 
little. And then, as though overcome by his few brief 
words, he looked up into the clouds that trailed the sky. 
“She ben gonta blow,” he observed in a colorless tone. 

With mute pity, Julie watched him carefully piling the 
best branches for her. Thus, she thought, did simple souls 
take the big things of life, in patient and wordless stoicism. 
It was the better way. 

In stolid silence Chris helped her find the hemlock she 
wanted. She thanked him, and tucking a dozen flat, 
springy branches under her elbow waited a further moment, 
watching him throw two great boughs upon the fire. It 
was cold. A damp, penetrating cold. She pulled Michael’s 
leather coat about her and was conscious now that she wore 
no hat. The flames had caught the evergreen and burst 
into a brisk crackling fusillade, sending out a delicious tang 
that swept about her in a gust of wind from across the 
river. The smoke, faintly blue, swept upwards and was 
caught away . . . Curious day! Chris was right. It was 
going to blow . . . snow perhaps. She wondered what 
time Michael and Toby would get back from Vermont. 
They had gone in Michael’s car, and the roads might be 
bad. The mare’s tail swept higher now in the west, 
blurring the sun to a spot of dusky orange. She could 
hear the faint soughing of the wind in the trees across the 
river. It was drowned suddenly by fresh crackling as 
Chris piled on more boughs. She caught sight of Fanny 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


155 

scouting along on the snow-covered ice at the edge of the 
river, and looking about for the cocker puppy saw her 
sitting not far from the fire, on the blue tailboard which 
Chris had tossed down, to unload. She laughed. “Come 
on, Tess,” she said, “it’s cold. . . . Thank you, Chris,” 
she called, and turning away from the fire, she started off 
up the hill. Tess followed with alacrity. Crossing the 
slope slantwise, Julie made for the door in the brick wall 
below the orchard. She would put the hemlock in the 
potting-shed, where it would keep well, in the cold, until 
the morning, and not be covered with snow, perhaps, in 
the night . . . 

What a delicious color the door was . . . and the bloom 
on the old bricks of the wall . . . Her unhappy thoughts 
were for the time forgotten ... A fire of brush, the dark 
trees beyond the frozen, snow-covered river, trailing clouds 
in a windy sky, had taken their place . . . Her fingers 
closed on the old iron ring in the door she loved. She 
turned it. 

With a faint protesting creak the door swung open— 

and Julie found herself face to face with Ambrose Sheridan. 

% 

“Hello—genie of the iron ring!” she said, and they both 
laughed. 

“I saw you streaking across the hill for the door in the 
wall, and lit out to meet you. What are you doing with 
all that greenery?” He stood looking down in friendly 
amusement that lighted the hazel eyes behind his metal- 
rimmed spectacles and deepened the lines in his nice face. 
“Let me take ’em, Julie.” 

A warm feeling of friendliness for this big, kindly man, 
who was a genius, shone in the look she gave him. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


156 

“Thanks, Sherry—I’m just going to leave them in the 
potting-shed.” She kept the hemlock clasped beneath her 
elbow, and without further questioning Ambrose Sheridan 
walked with her along the snowy path, to where the great 
silver beech spread a maze of branches over the shed that 
was tucked against the wall at the end of the garden. 

A small, brown rabbit crouching on the straw covering 
of a cold frame hopped off at their approach, and with a 
flirt of his white scut whisked away from the cocker 
puppy’s abortive attempt at pursuit, to disappear into a 
burrow in the late cabbage patch. From a clump of 
current bushes came a cheerful “dee, dee, dee, dee.” A gust 
of wind swooped down over the wall and blew a strand of 
hair, like a live flame, across Julie’s cheek. If he could 
only catch her just like that! thought Ambrose with delight, 
and suddenly remembered his mission. 

“Will you give me some tea, Julie?” he asked. “When I 
came out of the studio and blinked about the house like 
an old owl, I couldn’t find a soul ...” 

“Two lone creatures!” Julie sent him a smile of com¬ 
miseration. “Mike and Toby went to Vermont.” 

Sherry nodded. “Hope they won’t get stuck up there 
in a blizzard. The barometer’s flirting round 28°—” he 
observed cheerfully. 

Julie gave a chuckle of reminiscent enjoyment. “In 
Chris’s words—‘She ben gonta blow—’ ” she told Sherry, 
giving an absurdly faithful imitation of the jerky, up and 
down intonation, and chopped endings, of the Swede; and 
having come to the shed, she went in and left the sprays 
of crisp evergreen on an earthy shelf that already held a 
row of pots and some raffia. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


157 

Ambrose Sheridan, watching her come out, thought how 
few women could look as fascinating, in that old coat she 
wore . . . hair all ruffled by the wind . . . Her face, as 
she looked at him, taken up with some inward thought, 
was unself-conscious as a child’s. And yet—she was no 
child! That he knew. 

“I love it all, Sherry!” she said in the still, hushed way 
she spoke of things that touched her deeply—“brush fires 
. . . smoke going up into a windy sky . . . little brown 
rabbits whisking over the snow—” she laughed suddenly 
—“and the smell of potting-sheds . . . And now—” she 
sent him a droll sidelong glance—“my soul cries aloud for 
hot tea. Does yours, Sherry?” 

Ambrose Sheridan wondered, even as he gave a laugh¬ 
ing answer, if Michael dimly knew this woman,—if any 
man could. 


2 

They came into the cheerful warmth of the old hall, to 
find Sam Tooth in the act of laying a great log of apple- 
wood on the fire. In some manner known only to Fanny 
herself, the spaniel had got there before them and, ever 
assiduous in looking to her creature comforts, was already 
curled possessively at the end of the settle nearest the 
hearth. As the door shut, her tail thumped the seat, and 
Sam, coming stiffly to an upright position, sent a comically 
distressed glance at Julie. 

“It wint out on me,” he confessed. “Whin the wind do 
be risin’ it dhraws the shmoke its choice ways.” A smudge 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


158 

was across his nose. His eyes blinked, watering from his 
efforts carried on in the depths of the fireplace. 

“I know, Sam,” agreed Julie with perfect gravity, “but 
it looks splendid now. ... I think we’ll have tea right 
here. Can we?” 

“Ye can have it in any mortal spot ye have a mind, Mrs. 
Michael.” It was plain for all to see what Sam Tooth 
thought of his new mistress. 

“‘Lo, Sam,” laughed Sherry. “How’s the rheumatism?” 

The old man rubbed a leg absently. “It twitches at me 
whin the rain comes, Mr. Sherry,” was his sober answer. 
And with a last look at the recalcitrant fire he turned and 
scuffled off. 

Julie tossed her coat over a chair and walked toward 
Fanny and the settle. “My hair’s flying wild, and my hands 
are covered with pitch; but I’m not goin’ to do a thing 
about it, Sherry,” she said. She leaned to tilt a log, let¬ 
ting the flames through a chink. “Poor old Sam— He 
never could do much with a fire,” she murmured. 

Sherry was getting off his things. Something fell, with 
a slap, on to the floor. Julie turned to see him stoop and 
pick up an envelope. He fished some others from a deep 
pocket, and looked across at her with a smile. 

“Lucky it fell out, Julie. I clean forgot. Your mail was 
left with ours, by mistake.” He gave her a thin long 
envelope. “The rest is all for Mike, I think,” he said; 
“shall I put it in his den or somewhere?” 

“Thanks, Sherry—will you?” He went off across the 
hall and left her standing with the envelope in her hand. 
Casually she opened it. 

She saw that the heading was a firm of lawyers. Her 
father’s lawyers. Her eyes went swiftly on down the page. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


*59 

. . To advise you that all interest on mortgage for said 
house and estate ceases . . . The mortgage being paid off 
in full . . . Clear of all encumbrances and entailment, 
said estate stands in your name. . . 

At first the words, with no special meaning, seemed to 
jump at her from the thin paper. Once more she read it 
through. And then, swift and hot as flame, the full import 
caught her—Michael had done this thing! He had— Oh, 
God! 

Someone was speaking to her—disconnected words, from 
miles away,—Sherry: “. . . that little bronze filly on 
Mike’s desk . . . clever!” Slowly crushing the letter into 
a ball in her hand, she thrust it into the pocket of her 
sweater. With a sickening sense that the earth had fallen 
away from beneath her feet, she turned to face Ambrose 
Sheridan. 

“What, Sherry?” she asked, trying desperately to bring 
her mind to focus on the present need. Then: “Yes—yes 
—” she got out: “Pat English—did it.” 

“Nothing wrong?” asked Sherry quickly, forgetting all 
about the filly, at the whiteness of the girl before him—the 
strange look in her eyes . . . clouded with some secret 
fear. 

Julie looked at Ambrose, as the difficult color flooded up 
into her face; and her eyes strove to shut this thing away 
from him. 

“It’s—just an explanation, Sherry—that’s all.” A door 
opened. Sam was there . . . “Let’s have some tea,” she 
said with an attempt at lightness, at once gallant and 
pathetic, followed by a little shaken laugh. Wise Ambrose 
Sheridan held his peace—for the moment. 

Sitting side by side on the old pine settle, they drank 


i6o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


their tea and ate hot scones. At least, the man did. And 
if Julie only nibbled at something, and then, giving up all 
pretense of hunger, fed the whole thing to a delighted dog, 
her companion appeared to be comfortingly oblivious. 
They talked, and even laughed, as though Ambrose Sher¬ 
idan did not see that the girl’s eyes were overdark, and that 
her hand, taking a lighted match from his, shook. 

And after a little, as he leaned back smoking his pipe, 
in the corner of the settle, looking past Julie into the fire, 
Ambrose spoke of the thing he had come for. Offhand 
and casual, on purpose, he made a simple statement: ‘‘Mike 
wants me to paint your portrait, Julie,” he said. 

She did not answer right away, and when he felt that 
she was looking at him out of her silence, he turned his 
head to meet her eyes. “Why?” she asked surprisingly, 
and he saw that something—an expression that he did 
not understand—had crept into her face. . . something that 
hurt to see. 

But he only smiled. “The reason is obvious, I think,” 
he answered lightly,—“two of them, really. You are 
rather uniquely thrilling to look at, you know—or perhaps 
you really don’t—and you are Mike’s wife.” 

She looked at him strangely for a moment, as though she 
hardly saw him. “I don’t think I will, Sherry,” she said 
slowly at last. 

He nodded, as if he understood perfectly, and then added 
as an afterthought, faintly rueful, “I’m sorry, Julie, I wanted 
to paint you.” 

“Waste of good time, Sherry,” she told him, with a shrug 
. . . “Give me a light, will you? My cigarette’s gone 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


161 


But as he left, shortly after, he asked when Michael was 
getting back; and being told casually by Julie that she 
wasn’t sure, he came closer and laid a hand on her shoulder. 

“I’m nothing but an old painter fellar,” he said with 
sudden gentleness, “but sometimes I see things. I know 
enough to shut my eyes and keep my mouth shut too . . . 
if that’s best. But . . . when it isn’t ,—if it isn’t— You’d 
tell me, wouldn’t you, Julie?” he finished simply. 

She reached up swiftly and caught down the hand from 
her shoulder. Then just stood without any words for a 
moment. 

“Life’s a curious thing, Sherry,” she said at last. And 
with an odd smile straight into his eyes: “You’re one of 
the very nice things in it, my dear.” 

Grasping strongly for a second the hand she held, she 
let it go—as though dismissing, with that gesture, what 
had gone before. “Give my love to Naomi,” she said, “and 
tell Pip I’m coming soon now for the puppy.” 

Accepting Julie’s decision (if subtly given, such he took 
it to he): “Good-night,” he said. “Thanks for the tea.” 

As he opened the door a gust of raw air swooped in to 
the fire and dragged out a waft of smoke. “ ’Night, Julie,” 
he said again, and was gone. 

For a minute Julie stood perfectly still where he had 
left her. Then she turned slowly and walked to the hearth, 
where Michael’s spaniel slept in untroubled tranquillity. 
Sinking to her knees beside the dog, one hand going out 
blindly to seek the comforting living warmth, she stared 
before her, unseeing, while the slow, hot tears burned her 
eyes— “So—” she whispered—“it was that— Oh, Mi¬ 
chael!” 


Chapter Eight 


i 

I ’M coming—” He was calling frantically against the 
dark void of rushing wind that separated him from 
Julie. Someone held him by the shoulders. With a 
frenzied wrench, he freed himself—and woke to find that 
he had thrown the bedclothes from him and struggled 
to his elbow. For a second, the confused nightmare qual¬ 
ity of the dream still with him, Michael stared before him 
at a window he did not know. It rattled in a sudden on¬ 
slaught of wind, that tore, with the sound of rushing water, 
through some big tree beyond. 

—Or was it rushing water? Sharply, then, conscious¬ 
ness flooded back upon him. It was both. Wind and 
water. Unfrozen rapids of the river beyond the narrow 
road; wind in a gaunt ash tree growing close to the hillside 
farmhouse in Vermont. 

“My God, what a night!” he muttered, and started to 
retrieve a quilt that had slipped to the floor. Instead, 

162 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


163 

suddenly swinging his legs out of bed, he got up. Stoop¬ 
ing to avoid the long slope of the eaves, he made for the 
spot of lesser darkness that was the window. The boards 
of the floor were ice-cold beneath his bare feet. He rapped 
his shin on the corner of a forgotten chest, and swore 
softly at the pain; then drew in his breath sharply as a 
hard gust of cold wind met his chest. 

It wasn’t snowing—yet; but it would before morning. 
Crouching swiftly, he thrust his head out of the window, 
trying to see the sky. There was none. Sky and earth 
were one, in a tumult of rushing sound. He could not 
see the river, though its roar seemed to be right beneath 
him. 

Back in bed, he pulled the slippery old quilts close under 
his chin and lay wide-eyed to the folds of darkness blowing 
over him. He wished suddenly, unreasonably, that he 
and Toby had been able to get home . . . That ridiculous 
wild-goose chase of nearly two-hundred miles—to find a 
herd of perfectly good-grade cows—nothing more! He 
remembered, with a touch of reluctant humor, Toby’s 
cryptic and rather Rabelasian comment on the huddle of 
sheep offered. He had been entertaining. But they might 
both have been in their own beds now at Windyhill— 
instead of miles off in the wilds, with a run back over 
those God-awful roads—through a possible blizzard! What 
an ass he had been to let Toby persuade him to come in his 
car. 

God! he thought, in sudden and desperate realization 
of the real import of his absurd annoyance over a thing 
that once he would have done without a thought. If 
Julie could have come with them, he wouldn’t lie, now, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


164 

wishing to be back at Windyhill. If she were here, in 
this room— Roughly, with a curious sense of shame, 
he thrust such thoughts from him. . . . What a brick she 
had been, over the telephone that afternoon! Then, in 
a flash of reason: Why should she be lonely there to¬ 
night, really? How was it different for her from hun¬ 
dreds of other nights? 

He stirred impatiently, as though trying to throw off 
some weight that clung to him—to rid himself of the in¬ 
tolerable confusion of the future—and, forcing himself to 
relax, tried to hold his mind to the commonsense fact, 
that three or four o’clock, in a pit of wind-driven dark¬ 
ness, was no time to think of anything, if you wanted to 
make sense out of it. Instead, every thought he tried 
to put away—just because of it—came swarming, seething 
on the dark, to face him. . . . Julie, riding beside him 
on old Solomon . . . the sudden turn of her head . . . 
Her unconscious aloofness, that held such a charm, even 
as it put him off . . . Julie pouring out his coffee, her 
eyes bent gravely upon the work of her hands . . . Her 
sudden smile . . . the tilt of her pointed chin . . . Her 
head, so smooth and burnished, resting against the back 
of a chair . . . her eyes raised to his . . . The look upon 
her face, gay and suddenly whimsical, as she met a re¬ 
mark from one of Naomi’s boys . . . And then, queerly, 
there came before him the expression he had caught for 
one moment in the eyes she had turned to him that day 
when she had stood with a brush of blue paint before the 
old farm wagon, as young Martin asked him that crazy 
question about babies coming— Almost as though for 
a flash of time she had been afraid— Afraid of what? 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


165 

he asked himself. . . . He did not remotely know this 
girl who was his wife,—not dimly— How, now, could 
he begin? It was too dangerous. 

He saw her then, with a curiously inconsequent twist of 
thought, standing beside him before the altar . . . con¬ 
tained, quiet, though the hand he had put the ring upon had 
not been too steady. . . . Swiftly then, for the first time, 
a startling question sprang to his mind: Why had Julie 
married him? He lay there, every muscle tense with the 
shock of that question—and had no answer but the noise 
of wind and seething water, that seemed to pour over him, 
baffling and uncaring. 

. . . Could it possibly have been because she knew more 
than he guessed of what he had done for her father, when, 
in a world gone mad, the work of years had come top¬ 
pling about his fine head? —Gratitude? He felt hot 
all over: God! could it be that? . . . He had taken all 
she could give, under the circumstances. And what had 
he offered? Just that Julie toe the line that he had 
drawn with such sublime stupidity, such incredible blind¬ 
ness. . . . He had suggested, with what complacency, 
that the life of a woman like Julie should be cut off, with 
no fulfillment—nothing! He writhed, mentally, at such 
a thought. 

Then, in quick reaction, cold reason flooded in, chilling, 
unsatisfying: That—marrying a man whom she did not 
love—who had frankly—crudely, as he now saw—said 
what he had—would not be Julie’s idea of gratitude. 
What, then—? He would never know, perhaps. He 
could not, after all this, insult her further by questioning 
her motives. 


166 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


She must never know of the bit he had been able to 
do. Coming now, that might hold her against her will— 
Or take her away . . . Which? he thought desperately. 
Which would be worse? “God! I don’t know,” he 
• muttered aloud to the night. If she were happy—he 
would see that she was happy! he told himself fiercely— 
he could go on—he would have to go on—following what 
lead she gave him. He couldn’t just grit his teeth and 
go blindly at it, either. It was subtle, perilously subtle. 
By one wrong move he might shatter the whole frail 
structure of this absurd house of cards. 

That Julie might some day come to love him never 
entered his head. His whole strength and mind were 
concentrated on dealing with what, alone with the poign¬ 
ancy of his own feelings, seemed hopelessly unchangeable. 

How he ever got to sleep again he did not know; but 
he must have ... A wan light, which he had not watched 
come, was faint upon the things in the room. He could 
see one big branch of the ash tree toss and strain in the 
wind, sliding, dark and tortured, across a pale gray sky. 
Storm-ridden, the dawn was breaking. 


Seven hours later, after what seemed a lifetime of wind 
and bad roads and broken tires, and at last a blur of fine 
stinging snow—in a state of weariness and suppressed 
irritation at cars and tormenting ruts and—yes, Toby, 
Michael ran the long gray roadster into its resting-place 
at the barn, and two silent men walked side by side 
through what had now become a blizzard, down the half 
obliterated ruts of the lane to Windy hill. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


167 


2 


“I wonder where Julie is.” Standing before the fire 
in the hall, with his back to Michael, who was putting on 
Fanny’s collar, which in the dog’s vociferous welcome had 
somehow come off, Toby threw out the words with ap¬ 
parent unconcern. 

“I don’t know,” Michael rapped forth, getting up from 
his knees, where he had dropped to wrestle with the 
collar buckle. 

Toby swung about and, with lifted eyebrows, gave a 
short bark of a laugh. 

“You needn’t snap my head off, Mike,” he said . . . 
“It was a perfectly natural question, wasn’t it? With a 
blizzard goin’ on outside, to ask where you thought your 
wife had gone . . .” 

“Look here, old man,” said Michael, suddenly serious 
and quiet, “we won’t scrap over Julie.” 

“Certainly not,” answered Toby dryly. “I had no such 
intention. ... It was a mean afternoon, that’s all . . .” 
With a shrug of his big shoulders that would seem to 
dismiss all further interest, he dropped to the settle and 
hauled Tess into his lap. “How’s the little rat?” he 
asked, pulling a floppy ear, as if nothing had happened. 

Crushing down a surge of annoyance at the thought 
that he and Toby should have barked out so ridiculously 
like two terriers at each other, letting Toby have the last 
word, Michael walked over to the window and looked 
out. . . . Where was Julie? Sam didn’t know—or 
Naomi. Old Joe hadn’t the faintest notion that she 


i68 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


had gone out, even. He had called up Uncle David— 
Where else was there? —Jane! He couldn’t be such 
an ass as to call Jane. If Julie were there she would be all 
right. With a restless motion he rammed his hands deep 
into his pockets and stared with absurd uneasiness, and 
some irritation, into the whirls of fine snow that swept 
past, blurring the earth and obliterating the sky. The 
wind boomed suddenly down the chimney. Fanny came 
and sat disconsolately against his leg. He swung about 
and looked at Toby slumped there on the settle with the 
cocker puppy sleeping upon his knees. 

“I’m going to get my car, Toby,” he said. “Will you 
come?” It was almost as though he held out a peace 
offering. 

With perfect composure, Toby seemed to disregard 
any such opening, if such it were. He looked at his 
brother and simply shook his head. Only as an after¬ 
thought he volunteered, “Unless you want me?” His eyes 
had dropped to the dog in his lap—hiding his thoughts 
from Michael. 

“No,” came the one crisp word. Then: “Will you get 
Sam to have some tea ready?” Michael was struggling 
into his overshoes—somewhat impeded by the eager in¬ 
quisitive nose the water spaniel thrust in his way. 

A loud rap came on the door. 

Toby, like one in a trance, never even lifted his head. 
But Michael wheeled about and made for the door. He 
opened it, and without a word, like a storm-driven par¬ 
tridge, the bulky figure of the Swede swept in. Michael 
slammed the door behind him. 

“What is it, Chris?” he asked. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


169 

“Mrs. Cochrane—” the man began, “mit dose brandges 
of hemlog . . 

“What are you talking about, man?” Michael spoke 
sharply. 

“She take dem in her liddle small car—to de Fader’s 
grave ... for de birtday. She ben gone a long time, Mr. 
Michael.” The colorless voice stopped. The man’s pale 
eyes roved up over Michael’s face. His glance caught 
and held there by a pair of stern eyes, he repeated stolidly, 
“She ben gone a long time.” And in the same tone: “She 
ben bad vedder, out dere.” 

“Thank you, Chris,” said Michael shortly. Then: 
“Go get some coffee.” The big man looked at his master 
for a moment, unsmiling, then, turning slowly away, 
clumped off across the hall. Still Toby sat staring down 
at the small black ball asleep on his knees. Without a 
glance in his direction Michael went out. 

Very slowly, then, Toby lifted his head and looked 
bleakly at the closed door. He knew at that moment, 
face to face with his own soul, in a flash of tormenting 
clarity, that he was making of Mike’s need for him a 
cloak for his own greater need for Michael’s wife. Jane’s 
words cut sharply in, shouldering past all else: . . a clear 
field. . . .” “I can’t!” he whispered fiercely— “My God 
—I can’t go!” Then he did a curious thing. Very care¬ 
fully depositing Tess on the seat beside him, he got up, 
and, like a man walking in his sleep, made for the library. 
Going straight to the piano, he sat down; and with a sud¬ 
den reckless laugh plunged into that foolish, catching bit of 
jazz Pip had brought there on that night, a week ago, 
when he had danced with Julie. 


170 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 

Bent over to meet the force of the gale, half blinded by 
the fine stinging snow, Michael plodded through the deep¬ 
ening drifts, along the now completely obliterated ruts 
of the lane, climbing the hill to the gate. 

A strange jumble of half coherent thoughts and frus¬ 
trations gathered impetus as he fought against the wind 
that tore down upon him. He was glad there was some¬ 
thing to fight against. What a damned ass he had been 
to snap Toby up like that over a simple question! He 
was all so bound about with restrictions, he thought in 
an access of blind resentment,—so hopelessly at sea as to 
each move he made in this strange, unfamiliar game he 
had plunged into. He couldn’t even show to Toby that 
he was disturbed about Julie. In God’s name, why? 
Every simple, natural act now toward Julie must be so 
carefully thought out—so wary. He had never done 
things in that way before. It was new to him, and dis¬ 
tasteful. Sometimes, he felt, he didn’t know what he was 
doing, or saying. . . . Where was she now? Why in 
hell had they gone off on that idiotic wild-goose chase, 
and left her alone! 

He had almost reached the gate. Great swirls of sting¬ 
ing particles swept about him and tore on past down the 
hill. God, what a wind! Could Julie be out in this— 
stuck somewhere? He struggled on and came to the 
road, plowed through a drift and stopped. Sheltering 
his face with a mittened hand, he peered through half¬ 
shut eyes into the blinding snow that whirled towards him 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


171 

down the road. He could see nothing. And then, even 
as he turned to make for the barn, he thought he heard 
a faint sound. He swung about and strained his eyes in 
its direction. And the next minute, on the wings of the 
blizzard, Julie seemed literally to be driven against him. 
He threw out an arm to steady her, and for a second 
stared into a pale face and a pair of laughing eyes . . . 
“I got stuck, Michael.” The words came to him faintly, 
as from miles away. . . . Suddenly all the thoughts of 
the past night, the suppressions and torments, his hidden 
apprehension for her safety, now relieved, seemed to burst 
within him into a flood of paradoxical anger at the sight 
of Julie’s white face and game, laughing eyes. He caught 
her up, almost roughly, like a child, into his arms: “Don’t 
go walking off into a blizzard again!” he said harshly. 

“Why, Michael, I—” she began to protest in amazement. 

“I’ve told you not to—that’s all,” he whipped out. 
And turning, he carried her, plunging in grim silence, 
unbroken by Julie, through the driving snow, down the 
hill. The wind rushed swooping past them. Its force 
was terrifying. Once Michael floundered in a drift. He 
never once spoke. Nor did Julie. 

They reached the house. Somehow, with Julie still 
in his arms, he got the door open. Leaving it wide to 
the storm, he crossed the empty hall and went on dog¬ 
gedly up the stairs, to her room. There, all snow-covered 
as she was, he put her down in the old wing chair by the 
fire. 

Without a glance into her face he went down upon his 
knees, and with deft quickness got off her snow-clogged 
overshoes. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


172 

Mutely, in a sort of speechless bewilderment, Julie let 
this strange unaccountable Michael have his way, even 
allowing him to draw her to her feet and take off her 
coat and fur cap. 

For a moment, then, the two stood motionless, looking 
at each other. At last: “I’ll send Hannah up with some¬ 
thing hot,” Michael said queerly . . . “Get straight to 
bed.” He turned and went out of the room. Julie, still 
dumb with amazement, watched him go. 

Suddenly, before her startled eyes the room swam, her 
knees felt weak— Could it be—? Swift, hot blood 
flooded through her weary body and flamed in her face— 
Did Michael—? Could it be possible—that after all—? 
She did not dare to finish such a thought in words. 
Instead, while the blood drained away from her face, 
leaving it once more very pale, she stared, unseeing, at the 
doorway, where a moment ago Michael had been. Then, 
with a little incredulous laugh for her foolish fancies, she 
turned abruptly away, and going over to her dressing 
table began, with fingers still numb from the cold, to 
do as she had been so curtly bid. 


4 

Old Hannah had come bustling up with steaming tea 
and the scones Julie loved, had fussed over her like a 
hen over an ailing and only chick, and departed, almost 
on tiptoes, as though leaving a sick room. How nice it 
was, sometimes, to be fussed over and petted a bit! Julie 
was surprised at the emotion that welled up, uncomfortably 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


m 

near to tears, as she saw the door shut behind the kind 
old woman. 

In her soft white wrapper, propped against the pillow 
in the wide four-poster, with a braid on either shoulder 
and her eyes looking very big, Julie might have been some 
lonely child waiting forlornly for a mother—who did 
not come—to say good-night. 

She did not feel forlorn. Julie was not prone to self- 
pity or futile railing against life. Her thoughts, at the 
moment, were anything but those of a child—lonely or 
otherwise. With a curious calm, born, perhaps, of a 
numbed mind and real physical exhaustion, together with 
the warmth that stole through her body from the reviv¬ 
ing tea, for some minutes after Hannah had gone she lay 
back against the pillows, letting her eyes rest on the flicker 
of the fire in the half light of the room . . . her thoughts 
hovering on the outskirts of that thing which waited in¬ 
exorably in the back of her mind for the inevitable mo¬ 
ment of recognition and reckoning. . . . 

Stretched in an attitude of abandonment, paws in air, 
half slewed about, Tess slept close against Julie’s knee. 
A book covered with smooth green leather, its title in gold, 
had slipped down and lay half hidden by the puppy’s 
soft black ear. Julie’s eyes came back at last from the 
slumberous wavering firelight playing over the back of 
the wing chair, and dropped in a sort of abstraction to 
the sleeping dog. Tess’s absurd attitude, so utterly and 
blissfully abandoned, broke through into her conscious¬ 
ness. She smiled . . . “Lucky mite,” she whispered: 
“Somebody’s dog—who cares . . . Not such a bad life, 
Tess,” she finished in a little burst of irony. Then turn- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


174 

ing the puppy gently over, she retrieved the book, and in¬ 
voluntarily opened to the flyleaf. Michael Cochrane— 
the letters in a small, strong hand stood out before her. 
She remembered, with a vivid stab of recollection, watch¬ 
ing Michael sign his name, forming those letters with 
swift firm strokes—on their marriage certificate. 

Slowly she shut the book, and with it still in her hands 
sat for a moment looking before her—at nothing. How 
curiously little she knew of Michael, really—the inward, 
thinking man. Married to him, living under his roof, 
seeing him at the little daily tasks, in the casual everyday 
contacts, she knew the real Michael not at all. In some 
curious paradoxical way, with the form of marriage ac¬ 
complished, the tangible, knowable Michael had vanished 
. . . Become an illusive figure . . . quite unknowable. 
And yet, she thought, because he was simple and friendly 
still—just because of that apparent openness and frank¬ 
ness—it was all the harder to put her finger on any actual 
change,—more impossible to get past the subtle barriers 
which, consciously or not, Michael had built up. ... If 
she could talk to him frankly, as she had so many times— 
before. —She could not. . . . How could she speak 
simply and quietly to the Michael who had so roughly 
grasped her in that welter of snow and carried her in 
mute obstinacy, stalking down the hill, tramping somberly 
across the hall and on up the stairs? —A Michael who 
issued terse, clipped commands: Don’t do this,—do that— 
and that. . . . 

Her eyes dropped once more to the book lying in her 
hands. —And she had thought for one brief, mad mo¬ 
ment— What had she not thought, in that second after 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


175 

Michael had shut the door and gone away? She shook 
her head. No— He had treated her harshly, with hardly 
suppressed irritation, almost with anger. She laughed 
suddenly, a little bitter, incredulous laugh. Then in a 
wave of frightened horror at herself—at the future, she 
reached out instinctively to grasp the picture of her father 
standing on the table beside her. 

For a long minute she looked at the face before her,— 
that fine head, those long smiling eyes, the sensitive 
mouth, that was yet strong—wishing with acute and 
poignant longing for the man himself, back once more . . . 
Near her, to talk to, to laugh with—to be steadied by his 
sure and sane advice. He would have known so un¬ 
failingly what she must say—what do. Ah—but if he 
were here, she would never have left him. Never. They 
would have been together this moment in that old house 
beyond the hill, with the orchard climbing behind, the 
brook chuckling past under the hemlock. The old 
house! That was the thing she had pushed far back 
in her mind . . . dreading to face it— Oh, God, what 
must she do? ... 

Her first instinct on reading the letter which Sherry 
had so innocently given to her, after the meaning of it had 
penetrated her mind, had been to sell— Yes, in a sort of 
agony of shame, almost of anger against Michael—to sell 
the house that he had made hers ... To get out from 
beneath an intolerable burden of indebtedness to Michael. 
A plain act of revolt. . . . Then, in swift revulsion to 
that impulse, had come the bewildering recollection of her 
relation to Michael— She was his wife. —This was a 
generous act—to her, as his wife. Oh, but was it? When 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


176 

had he done this thing? . . . Lying there now, cared for 
and warm, sheltered by Michael’s roof from the storm 
without, some of that first desperate recoil abated and 
grew more calm. She had something to thank Michael 
for, first, before she made any further move. That move, 
when it came, must be made with clear eyes and a steady 
heart. She could not hurt Michael by flinging his gen¬ 
erosity back into his face. Her father would not have 
done that—ever! 

With a last look, as though for reassurance, Julie put 
the little picture back on the table, drawing nearer, at the 
same time, the crooked jar of green glass, with its two 
yellow roses, which when she had brought them over 
from her desk yesterday—could it be only yesterday that 
she had sat before that still unfinished letter to Martha 
Holland ?—had been closely folded buds. Now, in all their 
glory, they showed their orange hearts, glowing in the 
pool of light from the low lamp beside her, filling the 
room with their spicy fragrance. A sudden gust boomed 
in the chimney. Julie’s eyes went involuntarily to the 
window. But the storm whirled past, unseen. Darkness 
had blotted out all but the sound. . . . What was Michael 
doing? Was he still—? No—it was her house she must 
think about. She had not looked again at that letter since 
Sherry had come upon her, there, by the fire in the hall, 
and she had crushed it into a ball and crammed it ruth¬ 
lessly into her pocket. She would read it now, calmly 
and reasonably. 

Getting up carefully so as not to disturb the sleeping 
puppy, she crossed to her closet, and finding the sweater 
she had worn, sought in the half light for the right-hand 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


177 

pocket. No ball of crumpled paper was there. None 
in the other pocket. Crouching quickly she felt about the 
closet floor. It was not there, either. She straightened 
up and tried to think back. Hadn’t it been there last 
night? She did not know . . . 

And as she stood there, her eyes fastened in concentra¬ 
tion on the play of firelight over the top of a brass andiron, 
she became aware of footsteps coming along the hall. 
Startled from their absorption, her eyes flew swiftly to 
the door. Unable to move, she simply waited. —Michael 
was coming! —Why? The footsteps stopped. Then, as 
though repeating something that had already sounded in 
her mind, a knock came upon the door. 

Holding close about her the soft white thing she wore, 
her head lifted, she answered to the knock: “Yes?” Ab¬ 
surdly hard, her heart knocked within her. “Come in—” 

Slowly the door opened. Michael stood there looking 
at her. At the sight of her poised as though for flight 
before the open closet, there came over his face the quick 
smile Julie knew so well. In sheer relief, she laughed. 
Then, before she thought, she was speaking: “The ogre 
has caught me. Why don’t you say, ‘Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum’, 
Michael?” 

“Are you looking for him in the closet—the English- 
mun?" he asked, as though nothing of any moment were 
between them. 

At that Julie sobered and came to earth. 

“I’m looking—for a letter I lost, Michael,” she answered 
simply. 

“I’ve come to explain something about that letter,” 
said Michael quietly. 


178 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


5 

Too amazed to utter a word, Julie watched Michael shut 
the door. Separated from him by the big wing chair, with 
one hand resting on the high back, the other holding the 
soft flimsiness of her wrapper about her, a ruddy, child¬ 
like braid on either shoulder, she waited, in large-eyed 
wonder. Thus, as he turned, Michael saw her. 

The man who had stood there before Julie an hour 
ago, mute, inimical, was gone ... as though part of a 
confusing nightmare. Julie felt, with a thrust of queer 
comfort, that he was for the moment at a loss as to how 
to begin. 

But even as the thought came to her, Michael surprised 
her once again. He was smiling at her—a slow smile that 
deepened the lines in his face. He came over to her, and 
resting one knee on the arm of the chair, with a hand on 
either side of hers, looked whimsically into her face. 

“You little naughty, red-haired thing,” he said slowly, 
and his eyes glinted in the firelight with an amused 
sparkle. “You ought to be in bed!” 

And suddenly Julie felt like a naughty child, caught, 
but absurdly happy. . . . This was the Michael she knew 
—who made things terribly possible . . . Even quarter 
loaves. 

She leaned forward impulsively, with her elbow on the 
back of the chair, smiling straight into his eyes. One 
long, burnished braid slipped down across his wrist. 
“Ogre!” she mocked softly, on a little rush of happiness. 

For one breathless second, as she saw the smile die out 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


179 

of his eyes, she had the extraordinary sensation that he 
was going to kiss her. With some instinct of self-preserva¬ 
tion, come as quickly as light travels, she had moved her 
elbow from the back of the chair, and Michael, on his 
feet, was saying something. She looked up in curious con¬ 
fusion to meet his eyes. They were simply friendly— 
friendly and grave. On the palm of his hand, held out 
to her, was a crumpled ball of paper. “It’s this, isn’t it?” 
he was saying evenly, almost casually. 

He gave it into her keeping. Mutely she took it. “I’m 
going to pull this old chair about,” he said . . . “I’ll 
tuck you into it with a quilt, and stir up the fire ... I’d 
like to explain something, if I can, Julie.” 

“Yes, Michael,” she answered quietly. But beneath that 
quiet voice her heart beat thickly. 

Seated in the old chintz-covered chair, watching Michael 
go over to the bed and pull off the green silk puff, she 
thought, with an involuntary smile, that never before in 
one day had she been ministered to in so many and vary¬ 
ing ways . . . Somewhere far off in a world that did not 
touch her, the wind swooped high over the chimney. A 
sudden gust, more fierce than any before, swept snow about 
the end of the house to whisper and rustle against the 
* window. It was all remote. Here in the firelight, warm, 
fragrant and friendly, the old room, with Michael in it, 
was for the moment complete ... all that mattered. . . . 

Tess had come to life. Stretching luxuriously, she walked 
to the foot of the bed, where, head a-cock, she watched with 
interested eyes the corner of the quilt trail behind Michael 
across the floor. She gave a sudden gurgle of a bark, and 
flopping down with her paws over the edge of the bed 


i8o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


looked longingly at the floor below. Her tongue out, she 
panted, and added another short bark. 

“Come on, silly,” said Michael without looking round. 
The puppy dropped on to the rug with a subdued thud, 
stretched again, gave a cavernous yawn that ended in a 
squeak, then walked solemnly after Michael over to Julie 
and jumped into her lap. 

Michael, the quilt caught across him, his hands on his 
hips, looked down at the pair in the chair. “You know 
a good thing when you see it, Tess; and you don’t wait 
long—to take it, do you?” He laughed softly, and bend¬ 
ing over tucked the green silk thing about Julie’s knees. 
Humming a tune, he wound the quilt deftly about her 
feet and slid up a stool to rest them on. Once he smiled 
up at her in a detached but friendly way that made Julie 
feel like a child. “I’m as helpless as a mummy,” she 
told him, smiling back. “That’s just what I need,” he 
answered with a sudden droll look, unexpected and en¬ 
gaging. 

He got some logs out of the old green chest beyond the 
hearth, and went down on his knees for the business of 
fixing the fire to his satisfaction. Watching him, Julie 
knew a moment of intense happiness. This was worth 
much that might come after. . . . She found herself 
noticing how the crisp hair on the back of his head swept 
across in a sort of cowlick, dented in where his hat had 
been. Right in the nape of his neck a quirk of hair 
curved upwards—like the tail feathers of a duck, she 
caught herself thinking with delight. . . . He was very 
lovable and human. She wanted suddenly, with surpris¬ 
ing urgency of desire, to put out her hand and smooth 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


181 


down that funny little tail feather. She loved him un¬ 
speakably . . . 

She dropped her eyes from the big kneeling figure to 
the puppy in her lap . . . Michael was getting to his 
feet. Looking up again she found his eyes resting upon 
her with quiet scrutiny. 

“That’s one of about ten ways,—all perfect,” he said 
slowly. He stood with his hands thrust deep in his 
pockets, his shoulders stretched tense, showing clearly 
the powerful frame of him beneath the thin leather 
thing he wore, and regarded Julie with a quizzical air, 
his eyes faintly smiling, as though no such thing as a bit 
of crumpled paper grew hot in the clutch of her hand— 
waiting for an explanation. 

Julie rested her head against the wing of the chair 
and sent back a slanting look from under dark eye¬ 
lashes: 

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re driving at, Mike,” 
she said. 

“Something I want Sherry to do,” he answered. 

“Oh—that—” and very slightly, unconscious that she 
did so, Julie slowly moved her head in negation. 

“Is that the answer you gave Sherry?” asked Michael 
oddly. 

“Yes, Mike,” she answered quietly, looking down to the 
ball of crushed paper in her hand. 

Without another word, asking no explanation, Michael 
bowed his head once in a measured and final accept¬ 
ance. And Julie, wanting with overwhelming and sud¬ 
den distress, to explain, knew a feeling of hopeless im¬ 
potence. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


182 

He was calmly drawing his cigarette case out of a deep 
pocket. “Want one, Julie?” he asked. “Or perhaps you 
don’t—here.” 

For reply, she simply reached out to the low table at her 
side for a box of matches. Lighting one, she held it up, 
with a smile. “You’re rather nice, Michael,” she said 
unexpectedly. 

“You—?” he offered, holding out the case. She shook 
her head, and he bent over quickly to light his at the 
proffered match, then taking it from her tossed it into 
the fire and turned to face her. 

“I found that bit of paper in the bottom of the wood box 
in the hall, Julie,” he said, looking soberly down upon 
her. 

“Oh—” Julie barely breathed the word. 

“I was putting a log on the fire down there—after— 

Just now when I went down,” he finished steadily. “I 

picked it up and was going to throw it into the fire . . . 
Then—I looked at it first—to see. ... I am glad it hap¬ 
pened, my dear,” he went on simply, “for it needs an 
explanation.” 

His eyes went to the cigarette between his fingers. He 
flicked off the ash very carefully, then spoke, half to him¬ 
self: “Old fool, Potts . . . They’re so terribly over- 

meticulous about things that don’t matter a damn, those 

lawyer chaps.” He broke off and looked up at Julie. 
“I’ll have to go back a bit,” he said thoughtfully. 

Thus far Julie had said no word, nor made a sign, to 
interrupt Michael. Now, suddenly, as she found herself 
on the point of hearing something that she had longed 
to know, she felt a sharp recoil. He was so quiet, and 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


i8 3 

simple, and frank, this Michael. He had done this gen¬ 
erous act. Why should she put him in the position of 
having to explain a kindness. It became to her, for him, 
suddenly humiliating, and unfair. 

He was saying something which in the stress of her 
feelings she had not taken in. . . . With a swift motion, 
at once gentle and imperative, she stretched out her hand. 
“Wait, Michael!” she said. “My dear—why should you 
do this?” 

With profound surprise, Michael simply stood looking 
down at her. She felt the slow blood mounting in her 
face; but she held her eyes upon him, unwavering. 

Then: “—Why should I, Julie?” he echoed queerly 
... “I did it for your father . . 

Julie gave a sorry shake of her head, then broke out: 
“Please—please, Mike— Listen to me, first.” 

She saw his eyes grow dark, till they seemed to smoul¬ 
der with a sort of somber fire . . . 

“Perhaps it’s better that nothing were said.” His voice 
came to her with a shock of quiet force. In acute despera¬ 
tion at the turn things had taken—a sort of agony of 
futility for the things that now she could not say—or hear 
—she made a little gesture of acquiescence. 

“Perhaps—” she said in a low voice. Tess stirred and 
got suddenly to her feet. The ball of crumped paper, 
that had come to rest in a fold of the quilt, flicked lightly 
off and bounced upon the rug at Michael’s feet. 

He bent over, quite casually, and Julie saw him pick it 
up and toss it into the fire. 

Footsteps were coming along the hall. Someone knocked 
on the door. Michael pushed his hands deep into his 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


184 

pockets, hunching his shoulders high, and glanced at 
Julie. “Your supper,” he murmured. “Do you want 

itr 

Somehow she mustered a smile. “I think so, Michael,” 
she answered. 

“Come in!” he called, and, not waiting for further de¬ 
velopments, walked over to the chair where Julie sat. 
“Shall I take Tess out?” he asked . . . “Must be about a 
foot of snow now.” 

“Don’t lose her, Mike,” was all Julie said, as she held 
the sleepy puppy up to her husband. 

Thus, apparently in amicable connubial converse, old 
Hannah found them, as she bore in a tray. 

With easy good nature, and a complete composure that 
Julie felt hopelessly far from, Michael surveyed the on¬ 
coming tray. “Giving Mrs. Michael a good feed, Han¬ 
nah?” he asked the old woman. 

“Your own is waitin’ on ye, Mr. Mike. Mr. Toby’s 
famished,” was her retort, with the respectful familiarity 
of long service in the Cochrane household. 

Michael gave a short laugh, and with Tess tucked under 
his arm started for the door. 

“Thanks, Mike—for everything,” said Julie suddenly. 

He turned and looked at her queerly for a moment, 
over Hannah’s head . . . “For nothing,” he corrected, 
and was gone. 

6 

Sitting in the library, across the width of the hearth 
from Toby, Michael struggled to bring his world back 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


185 

to the old sane footing—from the confusion and chaos 
into which he had been caught up—or pulled down, he 
thought, with a feeling of hopelessness where no gleam 
of humor penetrated. With a sort of callousness possessed 
by the elements, the blizzard rushed in fury at the windows 
beyond a silent Toby, who, his nose buried in a book, 
calmly—or not?—offered no help to Michael. . . . 

He didn’t want help. Out of the long habit of loneli¬ 
ness, and often harsh self-discipline, he did not ask for 
that, or know the need. It was, rather, the strong desire 
for solitude which ached within him . . . No one there 
—not even Toby—to see him struggling to ride this blind 
country. . . . No! he didn’t mean that. He had begged 
the boy to stay . . . and Julie— In an access of exaspera¬ 
tion at the silence become palpable, that seemed to hold 
him motionless and impotent in its grip, with a feeling 
of bitter frustration, he thrust his foot sharply forth. A 
surprised dog jumped out of a deep sleep, and standing 
huddled together looked at him with dumb, questioning 
eyes. It was Fanny. She came slowly and laid a moist 
nose upon his knee. He let her stay there for a moment, 
making no move toward propitiation. Bewildered but 
forgiving, she drew her head slowly away, and with a 
stab of contrition Michael leaned over and hauled the 
clumsy dog up into his lap. Pushing her head into the 
crook of his elbow, she gave a long sigh and then was 
quiet . . . 

A savage gust of wind tore at the windows behind Toby. 
He lifted his head and stared in troubled abstraction at 
the man and dog in the chair before him. “God, what a 
night!” he muttered. And then, “You asleep, Mike?” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


186 

“No.” 

Toby looked at Michael for a further moment, as though 
hardly seeing him or taking in the word he had said; 
then, once more going back to his book, appeared to read, 
absorbedly. 

Interrupted, glad of a minute of respite, reaching as it 
were a spot of vacuum in the sweep of his rushing thoughts, 
for a space Michael’s mind seemed to float free. His eyes 
had gone on over Toby’s bent head to the window. He 
saw, without particularly caring, that the panes were 
covered halfway up with drifted snow. In his mind, his 
thoughts projecting his body into the blizzard, he felt 
the cold on his face . . . heard the wind howling through 
the pine trees . . . blowing the snow across a blind 
world . . . 

Suddenly, sharply, he was pulled back into the room 
—and Toby. Some words had been spoken—lost now 
. . . floating somewhere out of reach . . . 

“What?” he asked quickly, looking at his brother. Toby, 
lying back in his chair, sent him an oddly arrested glance 
... as though the abrupt chopping off of his sentence had 
snatched its meaning away. Then he gave a short laugh. 
“You ought to be reading this”—he indicated with a flick 
of his fingers the book in his lap. “It’s all about—wool 
gathering, in one form or another.” 

“Sorry—” Michael got out a grunt of an answering 
laugh. “Go on, old man— What was it?” 

“Just that I might get back to this—before the spring.” 

“What do you mean!” Born of quick remorse, the 
words sprang from Michael in swift, vehement denial. 
Toby had dropped his eyes and was turning the pages of 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 187 

* 

his book slowly over. “They want me, Mike,” he said. 
“I . . . I’ve heard from them.” 

“When, Toby?” asked Michael, his voice subdued, for 
the pressure he put upon himself. 

Toby lifted his eyes. “You don’t really need me here, 
Mike,” he said. 

Steadily Michael returned his look. “How do you 
know that?” he asked in a curiously quiet voice. And 
he knew, then, that Toby must stay. 

Toby started to speak, but bit off the words, and Michael 
saw, with wonder, a slow tide of color flood up into his 
thin face. “Do you, Mike?” he asked, as though with an 
effort. 

“I want you—if that’s the same thing,” answered Michael 
evenly . . . “But not if you are—fed up,” he ended 
simply. 

“I’m not fed up— God, no!” burst out Toby. “Windy- 
hill— There’s no place like it . . . But—three of us 
here, Mike—might get to be—a crowd. You know the 
old adage ...” A reluctant smile flickered up in his 
face. 

Michael laughed. Intense relief—and some irony— 
mingled to make of it a convincing thing to Toby . . . 
and the words that followed: “Don’t be a damned ass, 
Tobe!” 

For the moment Toby was caught. As though giving 
in, he shrugged his shoulders. Then, coming swiftly to 
some decision, he leaned forward and looked hard at his 
brother. 

“Right, Mike— We’ll let it rest there ... for the mo¬ 
ment.” 


i88 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 

f 

His sudden and extreme gravity caught Michael up and 
made him say, “We’ll let it rest—with you. —Only for as 
long as you want to stay,—no longer.” Then lifting the 
trend of things to a lighter level: “But, man alive, it’s all 
a mountain out of a molehill!” 

“Some molehills are big enough to stumble over,” came 
the answer in the same spirit—“while you’re skirtin’ the 
mountain . . .” 

“Leave ’em both to the blizzard,” suggested Michael with 
a sudden smile. “Come on to bed, Tobe.” 

But Toby stretched his shoulders back into the chair 
and thrust out his legs. “Think I’ll finish this chapter, 
first,” he said lazily. 

“Wool gathering?” asked Michael casually, and deposit¬ 
ing the spaniel carefully on the rug, got to his feet. 
Toby nodded, and opening his book plunged, apparently 
without more ado, into its contents. 

Michael stood for a moment listening to the force of the 
wind, as it rushed snow-laden against the windows, and 
howled in the chimney—looking the while absently 
down at the man reading . . . sunk deep there in the 
old chair. 

At last, drawing in a long breath he let it slowly out: 
“ ’Night, Tobe,” he said, and swung about for the door. 

“ ’Night—” was the answer. 

Toby had not even lifted his eyes from the page before 
him. 

Under the light from the horn lantern on the landing, 
Michael paused on a sharp spasm of indecision, strange 
to him, and new. His eyes going along the dim hall to 
Julie’s room had caught sight of a strip of light beneath 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


189 

her door. A tremendous need for her swept him—to ex¬ 
plain everything—to see her, and hear some word in that 
stirring throaty voice. —“To what end?” Like the suck¬ 
ing backwash of a great wave, the stern scorn of the 
thought dragged back upon his desire, leaving him stranded 
in lonely sanity of thought and action. Deliberately and 
quietly he turned away, making for the low steps to 
his part of the house. But suddenly, halfway there, 
he stopped. —Toby was playing— Yes, in a lilting, 
hushed way all his own, he was playing that lullaby of 
Julie’s. And as Michael waited there in the dimly lighted 
hall, listening to the faint wail of the music, the wind out¬ 
side, and the storm, seemed to come in and be a part of 
it, sweeping into the theme, to mingle strangely, but 
convincingly, fierceness with beauty. . . . From the pas¬ 
sage behind him a sound reached his ears. Strung taut, 
he wheeled about . . . expecting—what?— 

There was nothing—no one. Only Julie’s door was now 
ajar. A slanting shaft of light lay along the floor . . . 
No further sound. No Julie. —The music! That was 
it. Julie was listening to it. . . . With sudden and un¬ 
reasoning jealousy, Michael wanted to be the one to 
play—to a door ajar . . . where, in the silence, Julie lay 
and listened. His foot already back on the lower step, 
the absurdity of the impulse stabbed him—filled him with 
a sort of scornful derision. “My God!” he muttered, 
“Where am I getting to?” 

Steadily, with purpose, he walked forward along the 
hall to his room, went in, and shut the door carefully be¬ 
hind him. 

A curious luminousness, hardly a light, was there in the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


190 

room, from the snow. He leaned his shoulder against the 
closed door, the glass of the door knob cold beneath his 
fingers. . . . What an extraordinary failure the whole 
day had been! Unaccountably, the words from last Sun¬ 
day’s psalm came to him: “For the good that I would, 
I do not; but the evil which I would not—” “It’s not 
evil!” he found himself saying aloud— “Just damned 
cowardly.” . . . He had taken his own personal feelings 
out on Julie up there at the gate,—a damned brute. He 
had found that fool letter of Potts’s . . . and then had 
been afraid to hear what Julie was going to say . . . For 
one moment, irresistibly drawn, he had come perilously 
near to— Leaning there, her bewitching face so close, 
one shining braid fallen across his wrist— God! If he 
had fallen so low—had kissed her! He remembered, with 
a swift, hot thrust of shame, her instinctive withdrawal. 
—Could she have known? How? What must she have 
thought? How could he go on like this? 

. . . Then down there just now with Toby . . . when 
he had spoken of leaving . . . after wishing him in limbo 
—his own brother . . . had he been at all convincing? 
He must convince the boy! . . . Because a rotten flame 
of jealousy had caught him, he had all but flown down 
and dragged Toby from the piano. Anger, and disgust, 
swept hotly over him— “Good God!” the words came 
harshly in his throat, hardly uttered,—“Can’t you be a 
man, and stand up to it? What difference does it make, 
that you’re in a hell of a hole? You needn’t pull the 
world in after you, trying to get out.” 

A dog scratched at the door. With a short laugh, 
Michael swung to open it. “Come in, girl,” he said. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


191 

“Misery loves company. —Hell of a night, isn’t it?” He 
watched the dog’s dim bulk as she shook vigorously . . . 
felt a sprinkle of snow from her, cold on his hand. The 
music had ceased. No sound came now but the wail 
of the wind. Michael shut the door, and without a light 
got off his things. Throwing a window high to the 
storm, he tossed a heavy blanket over the dog on the 
foot of his bed, and crawled in himself. Stretched flat on 
his back, he lay with wide eyes, listening to the thun¬ 
der of the wind in the chimney. 


Chapter Nine 


i 

S OMETIME before dawn, worn out by its own fury, 
the wind had dropped. Julie, waking, had seen 
through a rent of cloud, beyond a dark arm of hem¬ 
lock, the cold glitter of a star, and knew that the storm was 
over. Far away across the snow a cock had suddenly 
crowed. Turning on her side, feeling against her knees 
the friendly pressure of Tess’s back, she had fallen into a 
deep and dreamless sleep. 

She stood now before the geranium at the east window 
in the hall. In the sunlight that splashed through the 
deep reveal of the old window the beautiful single flowers 
seemed alive, like flame. 

The green watering pot with a long spout stood empty 
at Julie’s feet. One hand, crushing in it two dead leaves, 
rested on the sill before her, as she looked, with a tingling 
sense of delight, up the long slope of virgin snow beyond. 
It was too beautiful for words, the smooth, perfect sweep 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


193 

of it. A puff of wind blew a cloud of fine snow from 
the branch of a pine tree. Julie watched it drift off, 
leaving one great bough more dark than its fellows; and 
leaning her shoulder against the side of the window, her 
thoughts, too, drifted off. 

. . . There would be that same smooth, white covering 
over the dark springiness of hemlock branches—upon 
her father’s grave . . . and her mother’s. Curiously then, 
by a queer trick of memory, came the thought of her 
mother’s hands working in the earth at the roots of some 
springing green plant in the garden . . . Long, beautifully 
made hands, dexterous and firm. And then, as it some¬ 
times happened when she stood before a mirror, in a 
flash, seemingly part of herself, Julie saw her mother’s 
mouth—quirking up at one corner in the beginning of 
a smile. She caught her breath in a sharp sigh, and the 
vision broke about her . . . The slope of hill came back. 
And on it, now, appeared a figure, swooping in a wide 
curve that sent spurts of snow spraying out on either side. 
It was Pip—that wiry length of litheness in dark blue 
woollen things, with his skimpy beret rakishly askew. 
She had entirely forgotten that it was Saturday. 

She watched, fascinated, long enough to see another 
boy on skis swoop after. He fell with a wild plunge, 
and Julie knew that it was Micky—reckless young devil, 
who loved to go plunging about, taking shots at anything 
that came to hand—or foot! Pip had fetched up with 
a well-timed “Christie” beyond the pine trees, and was 
shouting to someone she could not see, who was evidently 
coming down the lane. 

Julie opened the door. Some snow, clinging to the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


194 

outside, detached itself, and blowing past her knees fell 
with a plop on to the rug. The air sparkled, keen and 
frosty. Standing on the tail of a snow-plow, Toby was 
driving the chestnut farm horse along the drifted ruts 
of the lane. Waves of snow curled off the stubby blue 
colter of the plow. The rough mane of the big horse 
blew and flopped in the wind, as did the brim of Toby’s 
old felt hat. Julie saw him cram it lower over his ears. 
His face was ruddy and hardened-looking by the cold. 
He called to Pip, and with a laugh pointed an arm at 
Micky, now only a length of ski slanting skyward and 
the dark blot of a body sprawled helpless: probably, with 
desperate laughter, thought Julie. 

Pip saw her first. She was beginning to feel cold; and 
with a genial wave and shout to them all turned to go in 
for a coat. 

“Hey!” sang out Toby; “hang on a minute!” He 
gave the reins he held to Pip, and hopping off the plow, 
plunged with a fair show of speed through the deep snow, 
across the space that intervened. 

“Isn’t it beyond belief, Julie?” he offered, as he stood 
on the doorstep, looking down at her. Then, with a 
sparkle of amusement: “Mike sent me plowin’ down here 
to say—” he laughed and corrected himself—“to as \— 
if you wanted to come along over to the spot of your late 
disaster ... to see if we can haul the old fliv’ out of her 
grave. —How about it ?—I don’t even know where she is.” 
Julie smiled slowly up at him. “Well, I do. I’m not likely 
to forget, Tobias.” She sent a droll glance toward the 
oncoming plow, and Pip hooking a ride behind,—“On 
that?” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


i95 

Toby loved her terribly just then . . . the sun shining 
on her ruddy hair, a mischievous glint in her green eyes 
. . . “Get on something,” he urged. 

“Well all go skijoring,” cut in Pip, bringing the old 
horse alongside with careless ease of precision. 

Then, with a glance over his shoulder at Micky now 
struggling to an upright position, he gave a quick chuckle. 
“Mick’s the damnedest thing”; he looked with a grin of 
recollection at Julie. “He just tried a jump of! the long 
ice house roof.” His voice ran up into a burst of laughter 
. . . “Clean buried in a drift, he was—all but the top 
of one ski—and only lost a button from somewhere,” 
he finished weakly, as he fished a handkerchief from the 
depths of a pocket and blew his nose. 

Julie fled up the stairs for warm things. 

In a bustle of importance Tess scrambled after. 


2 

When they drove the plow into the farmyard, young 
Tabs was hooking the final trace of the two gray farm 
horses hitched to a log sledge. Pip slid past the plow. 
“Where’s Mr. Mike? Isn’t he round, Tabs?” 

The boy’s head bobbed up from behind a gray’s quar¬ 
ters. “Naw—don’t think so,” was the helpful answer, 
as he composedly caught and buckled the ends of the 
reins. 

“Don’t hurt yourself, thinkin’, Tabs,” jibed Micky, com¬ 
ing alongside. Then, whisking about toward the barn, he 
sent forth a lusty roar. “Oh—Mi-ike!” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


196 

For a minute Julie stood there on the tail of the plow. 
Toby had begun to take the horse out, offering no remark 
as to Mike’s disappearance. Tabs, having accomplished 
his task, walked off to the barn. 

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” Pip gave a whistle. Then, a 
hand on one of the gray’s reins, sent a comical look over 
his shoulder at Julie. “Chatty soul, ain’t he?” he volun¬ 
teered. . . . “Mi-ike!” came another roar from Micky. 
And from her point of vantage, over Pip and the sledge, 
Julie caught sight of a familiar felt hat and pair 
of wide shoulders moving along beyond the farther wall 
of the cow yard. She hopped off the plow. Toby was 
leading the big farm horse toward the barn, where Micky 
had disappeared. 

Pip swung about—“Well timed, Mike!” he greeted 
cheerfully. 

Michael sent back some good-natured retort to Pip and 
came steadily on toward Julie. 

His hat was pulled down over the tips of his ears. One 
flap of a gray flannel collar had got outside his leather 
coat. With his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust deep 
in the pockets of his corduroy breeches, he came striding 
along through the snow—a terribly intriguing figure to 
the girl who waited. . . . Would she ever get over this 
fearful excitement that caught her so hopelessly unpro¬ 
tected and helpless? she wondered swiftly, as Michael, 
bringing forth a hand, slid it along a gray’s nose and 
came to a stop before her. 

“Awfully sorry, Jude,” he said briefly, looking soberly 
down into her face. “After getting you up here, and 
all—” Still he looked at Julie, as though some further 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


197 

thought had jostled the first aside. She saw the muscles 
working in his jaw and had time to think that he 
looked rather more gaunt than usual, before he was 
going on casually enough, half turned to Pip, “You saw 
the old gnome when you went past—?” 

“Old fathead, with ear-tabs?” 

“The very same,” answered Michael in all gravity. “He 
chose to-day, of course—Saturday before Washington’s 
Birthday—to plow his way up here at last and tackle that 
job in the hen house.” 

“ ‘The Carpenter said nothing but “Cut us another 
slice”,’ ” murmured Pip to the ears of the off-horse. In 
a sort of relief, Julie laughed. Then: “Never mind, Mike,” 
she said. “If you can’t let old Ear-tabs wrastle things 
out alone—and of course you can’t: he never would— 
I’ll show Toby and the boys where ‘X’—if nothing else, 
now—marks the spot, at the fork of the road . . .” 

Micky emerged at that moment from the barn with a 
coil of rope. He dragged a chain through the snow, at 
his heels. Toby followed. 

“Aren’t you coming, Mike?” he asked. 

“No—I can’t,” was the crisp answer. Michael turned to 
Julie. “Is the car in the way there at the fork?” he 
asked. 

“I’m afraid it is, a bit, Mike,” she said. 

“Right— Want Chris, Toby?” 

“Lord, no!” was the vehement answer. “Micky and I 
can carry the bus home, and Julie can go off for a drive 
with Pip, if she wants.” 

“Suits me, all right,” observed Pip with a wicked wink 
at Julie, who responded with alacrity. Fetching down 


i 9 8 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

the reins from where Tabs had tossed them, she stepped 
aboard the sledge. 

“Come on, Toby,” she said. Then looking at Michael 
with sudden mischief as though the bright idea had that 
moment flashed into her head, “Couldn’t you bring the 
Carpenter ... ?” 

She hadn’t meant to poke fun at Michael or his car¬ 
penter . . . She was simply taking a way out. But, 
being Julie, and seeing a curiously unresponsive look 
tighten Michael’s face, she would not go back on her 
tracks. . . . Why couldn’t he have laughed? 

He had turned, as if oblivious of her remark, to make 
some half-teasing one to Micky. Julie, knowing a mo¬ 
ment of hot misery, nevertheless gave a little mental 
shrug. Toby had dropped on to the end of the sledge 
beyond the ropes and chain. Standing to drive, Julie 
swung round with something of recklessness in a gesture to 
Michael—a sort of devil-may-care wave of her arm . . . 

Michael made no response. Only, for a moment longer 
he watched Julie’s upstanding figure on the sledge, as she 
drove the two big horses off down the hill. . . . “How 
little she knows . . .” he said at last, and turning abruptly 
away, walked back past the cow yard to the miserable 
hen house. 


3 

They had tugged with horses, chain and ropes. They 
had pushed with shoulders, sworn roundly and roared 
with laughter, trampling about in the drift—and only 
succeeded in moving the old car a few feet further into 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


199 

the ditch, at the fork. The horses at last hitched back 
into the sledge, Pip heaved a sigh of relief and remarked 
that she’d be safe there, anyway, for the winter. Then, 
bursting into laughter that caught them all along: “I’m 
off,” he said, reaching for the skis sticking in a drift 
beside his poles. “You can have a drive with Toby, 
Julie . . . Coming, Micky?—I’ll show you that jump.” 

“Yep,” grunted the latter as he struggled with a stiff 
strap. 

The reins in her hands, Julie turned to the man stand¬ 
ing in the snow beside the sledge. “Coming, Toby? I’ll 
show you that— Some thing, anyway.” 

“Mimic!” Toby dropped on to the sledge. “Carry 
me back to old Virginny,” he sang, crossing his legs 
tailor-fashion and raising amused eyes to Julie. 

She nodded, and without more ado started the horses 
off along the road that climbed to Windyhill. 

The snow was still almost unbroken, and badly drifted. 
The big horses plowed along with nodding heads to the 
clank and rattle of a whiffletree and some obscure creak 
underneath. Once a bough deposited a shower of snow 
on Julie’s shoulder. She had almost forgotten the man 
crouched behind her, and hardly noticed where she went. 

. . . Why had she acted like that to Michael? Why, 
when she was with him, was she forever doing and say¬ 
ing things that were just opposite from all her thoughts 
of him? She seemed to get in deeper and deeper every 
hour ... in love, and in trouble, that she was helpless 
to overcome or obviate. . . . How little Mike knew— 
How little! 

“Where are you going, Julie?” 


200 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


At the question springing up at her, Julie turned to find 
Toby standing close behind. She flashed him a sudden 
smile, humorous and thrilling. “Well, now you ask me 
—it looks as if we were turning in past the Challoners’ . . . 
We can go on by my house and over the hill to the barn. 
Is that all right? I did forget, for a minute, Tobe,” she 
confessed. “We just happened in here, really.” 

Toby laughed and held out a hand for the reins. Julie 
shook her head in smiling denial . . . And in that min¬ 
ute one of the runners met a hidden log . . . something 
that suddenly canted the sledge. Instinctively throwing 
out a hand to steady herself, Julie clutched at Toby’s arm. 
He caught her hand in a grasp of surprising hardness. 
And for a second there came to the eyes Julie laughed 
into, something hot and reckless—and arresting. Then 
the sledge righted and slid forward on an even keel. 
Julie had let go—and so had Toby. “Bumpy!” he said 
with a short laugh. . . . “Never saw it,” she was saying, 
while, in a flash of dismay, she knew that in five years 
Toby had forgotten—nothing! 

He had dropped off the sledge and was plodding along 
in their tracks. He was whistling that wretched catch¬ 
ing thing of Pip’s. Julie was suddenly terribly sorry for 
Toby. . . . What had been going on in his head all this 
while? —Why had he come home? —How horribly 
tangled up things were! She, herself, was floundering, 
hopelessly caught in the very midst of it all . . . and 
might be the cause of great unhappiness between these 
brothers. . . . Because, she thought with swift irony, 
the wrong one loved her. . . . Why had she ever come 
to Windyhill ... to break things up for them all? She 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


201 


wished, with her whole heart, as she drove the big horses 
through the deep snow of the lane, that she had never 
left the old house by the brook. Never! And then came 
sharply the thought: Michael had given her the house, 
—her father’s house! Oh! She lifted her head in a little 
desperate gesture. 

“There’s Jane!” observed Toby suddenly, from behind. 

A few yards ahead, coming out into the snowy fields, the 
lane swung past the Challoners’ tiny house with its huge 
barns and paddocks. Before the gate, with two terriers 
rollicking about her, Jane leaned on a snow shovel and 
watched them come. Serenely unself-conscious, not car¬ 
ing in the least, she had at the moment the aspect of an 
amiable thin scarecrow. Julie caught something flung 
out about a funeral procession. Then, leaning there 
on her shovel, the snow halfway to her knees, Jane 
waited their nearer approach with a quizzical grin on her 
weather-beaten, stable-boy’s face. 

“Do you wonder what we’re up to?” laughed Julie, 
pulling up on a level with her. 

Jane gave an inimitable hunch of her shoulders. 
“Where’s Mike?” she asked. “Have you buried him? 
You both look as solemn as though you’d been to a 
funeral. —And why the sledge?” 

“Why, indeed?” murmured Toby. “Speak to the lady, 
Julie. Have you forgotten your manners, child?” 

“Well—” began Julie with that incalculable, to Toby, 
sudden twist into impishness, “It was a sort of funeral, 
Jane.” She tilted her fur-capped head and Toby watched 
the beginning of that faint, secret smile he knew so well. 

“What are you talking about, Jude?” Jane, ready 


202 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


to laugh, was for the moment arrested. Toby, with a 
detached air, was fixing something at the back of the 
sledge. He gave a little bark of a laugh. Unwilling, 
almost, thought Jane. 

“I saw it, with my own two eyes, Jane— Three great 
men, with horses,—trying to bury a poor old Flivver— 
in a ditch!” 

At the expression on Jane’s face, she broke into a throaty 
chuckle. “I’ll tell you—really,” she said. . . . “Are you 
going somewhere with that shovel?” 

“Yes,” said Jane, affably giving in, “I’d like a lift to 
the stables.” 

“Hop on,” said Julie. 

With Toby’s help, Jane and the two Irish terriers 
scrambled aboard, and they started along the lane toward 
the barns, while to Jane’s delight, in an amusing vein 
far removed from her true feelings on the subject, Julie 
proceeded to tell of her encounter with the blizzard— 
The abandonment of her car in the ditch at the fork, her 
struggle up the hill, to be met by a wild-eyed Michael, at 
the gate. “Poor man,” she concluded, “I’d given him a 
mean half hour. He made me go to bed, and fed me 
on hot posset. —What is posset, Jane? Do you know?” 

And Jane answering, because Julie had a way of catch¬ 
ing up and sweeping another along with her in one of 
these amusing, fantastic turns of hers, wondered all the 
more, as she looked into the delicious whimsical face 
before her, how Toby could stand things— And was sure 
he couldn’t. Reckless young devil— He ought to go 
away. . . . 

Before the stable Julie pulled up the horses. Jane 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


203 

dropped off into a waiting drift, to swing sharply back. 
“I clean forgot to tell you—” her face crinkled in an ir¬ 
resistibly merry grin at her lapse: “Pat’s here!” 

“Pat English?” rapped out Toby, delighted and incredu¬ 
lous. 

“Pat—?” echoed Julie—“I thought he was in Paris—” 
Smiling, Jane shook her head. “Gaunt as a winter tree, 
erratic as the weather, and funny as the devil—he’s here! 
. . . Straying about somewhere on a pair of broken snow- 
shoes.” She waved them off with a chuckle and turned 
toward the stables. 


4 

The wild crab-apple tree at the bend in the lane made 
a delicate snow-topped arch over the width of unbroken 
snow beneath. Julie and Toby had to crouch low to 
pass. Toby, bobbing up too soon, knocked off a goodly 
mass of snow, that showered down over his head and 
shoulders and sifted coldly into his collar. He swore 
ruefully, and Julie laughed softly, wickedly. 

It seemed, then, as though they had slipped through 
into a space of faery. High up in the trees, the wind 
soughed, and a drift of fine snow floated down from an 
evergreen. The brook was completely buried. From 
the Heart of a snow-laden cedar a partridge drummed 
forth and made for the woods on the hill. Smooth snow 
. . . blue shadows of trees . . . another twist in the half 
obliterated lane, and there was the old gray house, crouch¬ 
ing under the hill, stilly remote . . . snowed in. At the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


204 

end of the path, by the tall bare lilacs, a man stood sol¬ 
emnly looking up at the house, apparently lost in thought. 

Julie caught Toby’s arm in a swift grasp. “Don’t say a 
word, Toby— He doesn’t even hear us coming.” Toby 
grinned appreciatively and nodded. 

With jangling bells and creaking sledge, the big horses 
thumping along through the deep snow, they drew near. 
The man never moved. 

Level with him, not ten feet away, Julie pulled up. 
Only then, as though noticing the lack of ringing bells, 
the man on snowshoes very slowly swung his huge frame 
to face them. 

“Hello, Pat,” said Julie, quiet and smiling. 

In the thin curious face a pair of amazing yellow eyes 
returned, unperturbed, and with no surprise, a smile as 
quiet as Julie’s . . . “Do you know, Linnet—” he had so 
far not even taken in Toby’s presence—“that’s not alto¬ 
gether canny.” His face broke up suddenly in a smile, and 
wheeling his snowshoes about, he came clumping up be¬ 
side the sledge and held out both hands. With one of 
Julie’s in each of his, reins and all, he laughed up into 
her face, showing his big white teeth. 

“I was standin’ here, wishin’ for you— How are you, 
Linnet? —And you, old Tobias Sheepskin? Thought you 
were in Australia.” Toby laughed. . . . “Where’s the 
Cock? —Think of you landin’ the old Cock, Linnet!” 
He scrambled, snowshoes and all, on to the sledge beside 
Julie, and putting a hand on either of the girl’s shoulders 
looked down from his gaunt height, with naive approval, 
into her face. Then he nodded his head. “It’s got to be,” 
he said. “That’s all there is to it.” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


205 

Julie was looking up with understanding and delight, 
her eyes shining mistily. Toby watched without a word. 
Pat English was speaking—“I’ve come three-thousand miles 
for your face, Linnet,” he said. “Thank God for the sight 
of it!” 

Julie gave a sudden smile of pure happiness. Toby 
saw it sparkling there in her upturned face. 

“You are just the same old Pat— Divinely crazy! 
What are you going to do with my face—now that— 
it’s here?” she finished gaily. 

“Oh, that smile! That secret, hopeless-to-catch smile! 
It’s been haunting my days and driving me wild— I 
couldn’t quite remember it.” He threw back his head 
and laughed for joy—stretching his long arms heaven¬ 
wards. Then suddenly dropping them, with a whimsical 
twist of his mouth, his yellow eyes gone off inscrutably 
to themselves: “I’m doing a figure of Woman—Annun¬ 
ciation—” he said, half to himself. 

Toby had long ago taken the reins from Julie, and now, 
without breaking into this strange and erratic meeting 
of the two behind him—not asking whither—was driving 
the big horses slowly past the snow-laden trees of the or¬ 
chard, up, up through the trackless snow glistening and 
blowing along the hill. He had thought he was entirely 
forgotten, but looking back found Pat English grinning 
at him over the top of Julie’s little fur cap. “Where are 
we off to, Toby?” he asked with a swift, droll look down¬ 
wards at the snowshoes he was lashed to. 

“I thought—” said Toby, slow and wicked, “you were 
either very full—or—very empty. I’m moving on for 
Mike to decide and administer.” 


206 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


Pat English gave a great laugh. “I’m very drunk! 
Wouldn’t you say so, Linnet? —My mind is whirling— 
teeming— milling with ideas . . (He had entirely for¬ 
gotten Toby again, and was looking with sudden atten¬ 
tiveness down at Julie, now sitting clasping her hunched- 
up knees in the middle of the sledge). “This is the top 
one—red hot off the griddle: Rent me the house, Jude— 
Don’t say ‘no’ anything —water, heat, light. There’s the 
big room at the back of beyond . . . with a pump in the 
offing; and no doubt there’s a log or two of wood and 
a candle. I must have it! There’s no other place like 
it. . . . You, in it, before the fire . . . your madonna 
head uplifted . . . smiling your worst little never-get- 
caught-yet smile—and me, with a lump o’ clay—” his eyes, 
intently dreaming, narrowed to golden slits—“and God’s 
help—to catch it—forever!” 

Julie’s back was now turned to Toby. She was look¬ 
ing up at the big man half crouched on the end of the 
sledge. Toby saw her slowly, and without a word, nod 
her head. . . . What, in God’s name, he asked himself, 
was Julie up to now? 


5 

“Good luck, Cock! Happy days!” Pat English held 
up a tall glass, and with a glint of raillery in his tawny 
eyes looked over the rim at Michael. 

“Thanks, Pat— Here’s luck to you!” They tipped their 
glasses and drank deep. 

“Ah—!” Toby spoke from the doorway-^“So Mike’s 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


207 

decision was:—Not full!” He came on in and threw a 
leg astride of the fire bench. 

Pat English put down his glass with a chuckle. Then, 
looking at Michael, his bony face broke into swift laugh¬ 
ter: 

“Toby refers to this morning, Mike—” He shrugged 
a pair of gaunt shoulders. “I’m crazy enough, God 
knows—though not with drinkin’— More often for lack 
of it!” 

Michael regarded him with a look of humorous ex¬ 
pectancy. He brought a pipe out of a pocket and began 
to fill it. “Of course you’re crazy. But I thought you 
were takin’ it out on Paris. You never gave a bit of 
warning you were coming back.” 

Pat English tilted his dark head and looked sidewise 
at Michael. 

“We’re quits there, Cock! Who ever told me you’d 
gone off with my Linnet bird? —Where she’s at the 
bottom of a thing, you see, one doesn’t give a word o’ 
warning. . . . I’ve come for her head—to carry it off on a 
charger—in clay,” he finished, with a slow, happy smile 
into the heart of the fire. 

From his end of the low bench, Toby sent a look at 
Michael. Standing with his back to the fire, the latter 
was apparently still absorbed in the process of filling his 
pipe to his liking, looking down as he pushed with strong 
fingers at the tobacco in the pipe bowl. Between the 
brothers, one knee resting on the bench, Pat English was 
staring into the fire, not heeding, in the least, that Michael 
had made no response to his remarks about Julie’s head, 
in clay—on a charger. Toby saw the muscles working in 


208 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


Michael’s jaw, and knew, instinctively, that in a minute 
his head would come up, with that quick lift that was a 
part of Michael—and he would say something, more 
quietly, Toby suddenly realized, than he was feeling, 
about whatever it might be. 

Ah—it was happening! A curious uneasiness stirred 
in Toby as he saw Michael lift his head to look at Pat 
English. He swung away and reached for a cigarette 
on the table beyond him, and, lighting it, heard Michael 
ask casually enough: 

“What did Julie say, Pat?” (Was it casual?—that little 
final inflection? Did it hold something of urgency?) 

The dark, ruffled head beyond Toby came up with a 
jerk. “Julie—say?” echoed Pat in a moment’s blankness, 
pulled away from something seen in the fire— “Oh—” 
He laughed joyously . . . But before he could go on, a 
throaty voice broke in from beyond the door—“Ask me, 
Michael.” 

The man half kneeling was on his feet in one ungainly 
motion, and facing the door. Standing there, her hand 
lightly resting on the lintel, a shadowy smile about her 
mouth, Julie was looking past the big sculptor, to Michael. 
. . . What was the matter with old Mike? thought 
Toby. The whole thing was somehow getting damned 
awkward— Wasn’t it? Then Julie was coming on into 
the room; and Mike had said—(was he laughing, or was he 
not?): “Pat says he’s going off with your head on a 
charger, Julie . . .” And Julie was laughing softly and 
saying—to Pat? “A perfect place for it!” Then Toby 
saw her turn and look, with curious sobering gentleness, 
at Michael: “Pat wants to take my house, Mike,” she said. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


209 

. . . “He wants to do my head ... for an Annuncia¬ 
tion”, she finished simply, and a faint color crept up into 
her face. —God! thought Toby with sudden bitterness— 
What was Mike made of? 

“That’s why I’m not in Paris, Cock, you see,” said Pat. 

But Michael was looking intently at Julie, a question in 
his eyes he would not voice; and, for the second time that 
day, Toby saw Julie faintly, mutely, nod her head. 

Michael gave an odd, short laugh. 

“What’s old Sherry goin’ to say?” 

Pat English twisted about to look at Michael. “What 
should Sherry have to say?” 

“Only, that Julie has just said a flat ‘no’—to a por¬ 
trait” . . . 

“Tough on Sherry— Wasn’t it, Linnet?” said Pat Eng¬ 
lish, rather gravely for him . . . “Why did ye do that?” 

Toby saw a change come over Julie’s face. Then she 
gave a low laugh, and, with a touch of mockery, asked— 
“Must you know, Pat?” 

“No! I mustn’t . . . Come and sing!” 

“After waffles?” was the droll protest; “how can I?” 

“I don’t know, I'm sure,” chuckled the big man, “but 
you always could—and you know it!” He thrust an arm 
through Julie’s, and marched her over to the piano. 

“You’re a terrible man, Pat English,” she said. “What 
do you want?” 

“To watch your face while you sing—whatever you 
please,” was the na’ive answer. 

“Sing that foolish song of Pip’s,” said Michael sur¬ 
prisingly, and turning, leisurely struck a match and lighted 
his pipe. 


210 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


Toby gave it up— All of it! Swinging his leg over the 
end of the bench, he slewed about with his back to them 
and stared into the fire. . . . Why, of all things, had 
Michael asked Julie to sing that! 


6 

Julie, with Tess at her heels, walked slowly along the 
path beaten in the snow, that dropped over the hill to the 
Sheridans’. 

The sun had gone down behind the hemlocks beyond 
the river. The big trees stood out darkly against a strip 
of clear green sky. Above, a line of cloud glowed faintly 
along the edge. 

She had come forth in a mood of reckless unhappiness, 
but the sheer breath-taking beauty of the snowy world 
had caught her up into a moment of sharp ecstasy, that 
was like the relief of tears. Her eyes dropped from the 
clear sky above the trees to the old house crouched there 
in a fold of the hill. One light shone out, like a golden 
eye, and dimly, stilly, against the west, smoke was rising 
from a wide chimney. How beautiful and serene it was! 
that snowy hillside, and the dark great trees cutting into 
the sky. “Oh—” whispered Julie suddenly, the word 
caught back sharply on a sob . . . She had been like one 
possessed of a devil, all the day long . . . Saying things, 
doing things, in a sort of blind revolt against life . . . fight¬ 
ing her love for Michael, until, for very anguish, she could 
have cried aloud, and she had left them there, Josh and 
Pat and Toby—and Michael. With some offhand word 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


211 


. . . something she had not meant, and did not now even 
remember, she had come away ... out into the cold hush 
of luminous snow under an apple-green sky. 

Thank God she could still feel it all! stabbing through 
the hopeless farce of what the days had come to be . . . 
acting, acting, acting. Why, oh, why couldn’t things have 
stayed simple and familiar as in the beginning, with Mike 
as he had always been? Not that that had been too easy; 
but she had at least gone forward with her eyes open, un¬ 
afraid. . . . Now it was as though she walked in the 
dark ... a dark filled with a confusion of voices which 
she could not understand. . . . Something had happened 
. . . she did not know Michael now. She was blindly 
feeling her way— Where ? . . . Things hurt, unbearably, 
and made her angry that they could. . . . What must she 
be like—if there were anyone to notice— 

Toby! The sudden thought of Toby brought her to 
an abrupt stop there on the snowy hillside:—What must 
Toby think? That he did think—to her sorrow she now 
knew . . . Anyone could see that Michael did not love her. 
They were not living together. And Toby— She had 
come blundering into Windyhill, on a ghastly mistake . . . 
ruining Michael’s peace, and doing a cruel thing to 
Michael’s brother. . . . 

And then—old Pat had come! Julie gave a little catch of 
ironic laughter. No wonder she had, metaphorically, 
thrown herself upon his neck! in a sort of reckless abandon 
of relief at the naturalness of him—not having to act: just 
being herself. It was good to see Pat. To hear his wild, 
inconsequent, enthusiastic nonsense. To be treated like a 
human being again. And so she had said he could have 


212 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


her house—and her head, too—never stopping to think of 
what Michael might think. —What did he think? . . . 
Only that she had treated Sherry rather shabbily. And 
hadn’t she, really? from their point of view— How could 
she explain to Mike? She couldn’t—she couldn’t even say 
the simplest of things. . . . She had felt that to allow 
Michael to have her portrait painted would be for her, 
somehow, not an act of faith toward all the Cochrane 
women who had gone before. How could she tell that to 
Michael? And how to Sherry? 

Tess, plunging up to her through the snow, brought 
Julie back with a start. The day was dying. The west 
had faded to a paler green. There, now, the evening star 
burned bright above the river. She was standing on the 
slope before the Sheridans’ house, and a shaft of light from 
the window of the end room lay in a blurred patch, faintly 
gold, upon the snow at her feet. There was the heartening 
flicker of a fire within. . . . Perhaps she could explain—a 
little, to Sherry. He understood things. He had asked 
her, that day ... Yes, she would go—now. 

With Tess plowing along in her wake, she crossed the 
snowy driveway and opened the old green door. . . . 

“Hello,” said Pip— “See what I got here?” He was 
sitting cross-legged in the middle of the hall rug, holding 
against a tweed shoulder an absurdly fat, chocolate-colored 
puppy. All doubled up, her back supported by the crook 
of Pip’s arm, she looked mildly up at Julie out of a pair of 
amber eyes. Tess had promptly seated herself on the ex¬ 
treme edge of the rug and was looking with comical alarm 
at the phenomenon there before her. 

Julie gave a chuckle at the sight. Pip made one chuckle. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


21 3 

And she grasped just then, as a blessed relief, at any of the 
simple nonsense of life. 

“I’m teachin’ her to talk—” Pip shot a droll sidelong 
glance over the puppy’s head at Julie—“French verbs.” 
At the glint in Julie’s eyes he tipped his head and laid a 
cheek against the puppy’s nose. “She’s stuck, at the 
moment,” he confided with a grin. 

“Give her to me, Pip. She’s too young for that.” Julie’s 
mouth twitched—and then, like children, they were 
laughing together. Pip got to his feet and deposited 
the month-old puppy in Julie’s arms. “You could take 
her pretty soon, now, I think,” he said. She held 
the warm little body against her cheek, half draped 
over her shoulder, like a baby. Pip stood a moment 
looking at her with young speculative eyes: “I like your 
face, Julie,” he said at last with simple frankness—“it’s thin 
and lovely.” 

“Do you, Pip?” she answered, smiling. And then: “Is 
your mother here?” 

“No she’s not. She walked over with the others to 
Uncle David’s, for tea. I’ve got to get ’em now. Do you 
want to keep Pippin—or are you cornin’ too ? —Dad’s here, 
of course . . . nosin’ around for tea. Do you want some?” 
Then, with his face lighting, not waiting for an answer, 
“He’s doin’ a splendid thing, Julie. The big beech tree, 
bare and silvery, with the old rosy brick wall and the shed 
. . . all slapped on wet and wonderful in water colors . . . 
with a great sweep of snow—real snow, and a most glorious 
windy sky . . . Nip up, if you can find him,” he suggested, 
“and take a look at it.” 

“I’d love to, Pip,” she answered gravely. The boy had 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


214 

begun, absently, kneeling before her on the rug, to pull 
down the zippers on her overshoes. She let him take them 
of?. Then, with the puppy still snuggled against her neck, 
she sent him a quick, warming smile of thanks, and turning 
away, made slowly for the room where she had seen the 
shimmer of a fire. 

The lamp was lighted on the gate-legged table by Naomi’s 
chair. It shone on an old blue bowl filled with Roman 
anemones. In the wide fireplace the ends of a mammoth 
log glowed and flickered where it had burned through 
and fallen apart. The faint tang of wood smoke was there 
. . . and the cool fragrance of some flower she did not 
see . . . On one end of the hearth, in the shadow, a 
dog slept. It was the old beagle, Mowgli. He raised a 
graying muzzle, thumped the floor with his tail, and 
dropped back into the shadow, and silence. 

Sherry was not there. Beyond the fire bench, on a low 
table, the kettle simmered and hissed. Someone had used 
a cup and put it down on the other end of the bench beside 
an ashtray and screwed-out cigarette. That wouldn’t be 
Pip. Sherry must have had his tea and gone off some¬ 
where, thought Julie. . . . 

She had come instinctively to stand before the fire. And 
seeing that a smouldering end of log had rolled forward 
on the ashes, reached with her free hand for the tongs (she 
still held the puppy tucked against her shoulder) and gave 
the fire a dexterous prod. Tess, having gone up and held 
an ingratiating and one-sided conversation with old 
Mowgli, subsided gingerly, because rather wetly, on to 
the hearth, and gazed solemnly into the new little flames 
that Julie’s efforts had evoked. The girl helped herself 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


215 

absently to a cigarette. She lighted it slowly, her eyes on 
the tiny flames. Then tossing the match into the fire, she 
dropped into Naomi’s chair. 

“Oh—” She gave a long sigh. How peaceful it was— 
this old room of the Sheridans’. How like them, too. 
For a moment, thankful just not to have to think or speak, 
she lay back, with little Pippin warmly cuddled against 
her shoulder and neck, and watched the thin lines of 
smoke waver and rise from the end of her cigarette. . . . 
Someone opened the door behind her and came in from the 
brickway. 

“That you, Sherry?” Julie spoke without moving. 
“I’d nearly fallen asleep in the mother bear’s chair.” 

It was Sherry. He came up to the fire, and dropping a 
felt hat on to the bench looked humorously down at the 
girl sunk in the depths of his wife’s chair. “They’re all 
off, somewhere, with Naomi.” He smiled: “I don’t really 
know where— Do you?” 

Julie nodded her head and smiled back. “I saw Pip. 
He was sitting on the rug in the hall with this,” she 
stroked the sleeping small thing in her arms and her smile 
deepened at the recollection—“teaching her French verbs 
. . . Said she was just stuck— Pip’s fascinating to me, 
Sherry. . . . He’s gone over to Uncle David’s for Naomi 
and the boys. They went there for tea, he informed me.” 

“Oh—” laughed Sherry, and swinging a long leg over 
the bench sat twisted about, facing Julie. 

“Been working all day— Gloriously—” he said, taking 
out his pipe. “It got dark suddenly, the way it does— 
and I went out .... The west’s a pale, clear green, Julie,” 
he went on happily—“as green as your long, wicked eyes 


2l6 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


. . . Trees dark on it—snow curiously luminous . . . 
And God, how still! I heard a dog bark somewhere, and 
the sound actually snapped like a whip.” 

“Yes, Sherry— I saw it ... I know.” 

“You’re one of the few people who do, Julie,” he told 
her. And then, with a change: “I hear Pat English has 
turned up at the Challoners’. I thought he was in Paris 
for the winter, working on some project.” 

“Sherry—” said Julie on a swift impulse to confess, “I 
wonder if I can explain something . . . even a little bit. It 
has to do with Pat English. That is, with his coming 
here . . .” The nice eyes turned upon her, behind their 
steel-rimmed spectacles, seemed, with a sort of grave humor, 
to invite whatever she might have to say. “Try it, Julie,” 
was the cheerful suggestion. 

The puppy had begun to rove about and try to get down 
over the arm of the chair. “Do you let her?” Julie sent 
Sherry an amused glance of interrogation, and saw his 
eyes twinkle. “1 probably would,” he confessed;—“but 
give her to me.” Smiling, Julie relinquished the puppy 
and watched Sherry go off with the small thing in the 
crook of his arm. Tess came and thrust a cold nose into 
her hand. Waiting there, Julie wondered how to begin, 
with what she felt she owed Sherry. If she could ever, 
now, speak the real truth—without having to turn and 
twist and think! She wasn’t used to going that way at 
life. She didn’t know how . . . And then Sherry had 
come in again, and was standing with his back to the fire, 
soberly smoking his pipe. It was like him, she thought 
with gratitude, not to remind her where they had broken 
off. 

“Sherry—” she said, suddenly making up her mind, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2IJ 

“the thing Pat English is doing—or has been, in Paris— 
is a figure of Annunciation—” The man addressed re¬ 
garded her with quizzical eyes over the bowl of his pipe. 

Pat got thinking, over there, that some tilt of my head, 
or slant of—oh, only heaven, or a sculptor, knows what!— 
were necessary to him for the head of his Annuncia¬ 
tion. . . 

“Not only a sculptor, Julie,” Sherry interrupted, calmly 
amused. 

“Listen to me, Sherry,” Julie felt she must get on with 
this thing. “When you told me that Mike wanted you to 
paint my portrait, and you asked me to let you, I said 
no. . . . When Pat English told me he had come from 
Paris to put my head into clay— I’m going to let him, 
Sherry. I’m going to let him have my house, too—for a 
month.” 

“Naturally,” said Ambrose Sheridan. 

“Oh, Sherry,” Julie felt horribly impotent—“it’s not 
natural—and you know it. But it’s different. This head 
won’t have to be about at Windyhill ... I hated to say 
no to you, Sherry . . . but I just couldn’t have a picture of 
me hanging at Windyhill— I—” She had blundered into 
the wrong road, and she knew it. For once, Sherry was 
not helping in the least . . . 

“Why not, Julie?” he asked simply. 

She shook her head slowly ... at her own futility. She 
could not be caught! Getting to her feet, she went and 
stood beside Ambrose Sheridan, and looking down into 
the fire that had leaped into new life, she spoke quietly. “I 
thought I could explain to you, Sherry. But I’ve slipped 
into a blind alley.” She turned her head to find his eyes 
soberly upon her, and impulsively laid a hand upon his 


218 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

arm. “You’ll just have to let me out, Sherry, the way I 
came in.” 

r 

“Of course, Julie,” Sherry was saying without even look¬ 
ing at her. He leaned and tapped out his pipe on a log, 
and straightening up, spoke casually. 

“You never had your tea, woman. Let’s drink some, 
now.” 

Julie found herself smiling into his thin face. “You’re 
terribly nice, Sherry,” she said. “I must go back—to 
Windy hill.” 

In the hall, regardless of amused protestations on her part, 
Sherry put her overshoes on for her. 

“I think I’ll go along with you, Julie,” he announced. 

“Please not, Sherry,” she said. “I—I’d rather. . . . I’m 
going out the way you just came in—by the brick way.” 

“Right—” Sherry laughed, taking everything for granted. 
“Go your stubborn way.” He went with her, back through 
the room they had just left, and opened the door. 

“Don’t fall over the skis,” he cautioned as Julie stood 
for a moment under the flat arch of the old brickway, her 
figure silhouetted against the twilit snow. “The things 
are all along the wall there . . . And don’t forget to 
look at Venus. She’s as big and brilliant as a fire balloon.” 

“I won’t, Sherry. Good-night.” Julie stepped out into 
a world of luminous snow. 


7 

Heedless of the still cold that wrapped him about, 
Ambrose Sheridan lingered for a further moment after 
Julie had gone, looking out under the shallow archway 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


219 


to the sweep of snow that dipped to the river ... up to 
the dark tracery of trees against a sky of pale, translucent 
gold. So deep was the hush of the winter twilight that 
he could hear the faint murmur of the big pine at the 
river’s edge. For one brief, perfect moment, taken out of 
himself, he was lifted on a wave of indescribably deep 
joy . . . He felt, with a strange poignancy, all the love 
and pity and sorrow of the world . . . stirring within him 
to the beat of the earth’s great heart. . . . Out of it came 
the swift thought of Julie—that she was game and fine . . . 
and very unhappy . . . Why? 

“. . . Well, Sherry, old man, are you making a bid for 
the flu?” 

He swung around, to see an amused Michael regarding 
him from the middle of the room. With a laugh, he came 
in and shut the door. “I never heard you, Mike,” he said. 

“My old hobnails are guilty . . . Bares and squares, on 
the rugs—’member, Sherry . . . when you just couldn’t 
touch bare floor?” 

Sherry nodded. 

“I thought I might find Julie here,” said Michael, as he 
walked over to the fire, where Fanny was already ensconced 
near a plate of bread-and-butter that stood on the tea tray. 

“Well, she was—but you’d have to run like a quail, to 
catch her at your own door. I don’t know why you didn’t 
meet her.” 

“I came by the road, from the barns. . . . Julie got fed 
up with so many men, I guess— Josh and Pat English 
were there, and Johnny Dick. She slipped out without 
a word. ... I came along as soon as I could shake ’em,” 
he explained simply. 


220 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“Too bad,” offered Sherry cheerfully. —“Have a drink?” 

“No, thanks.” Michael was lighting a cigarette. Leaning 
on the back of the chair in which he had found Julie, 
Sherry looked keenly at the half-averted face before him. 
His eyes, trained to see things—curves and angles, lights 
and shadows ... all the subtilities and fine planes that 
go to make up a human face—noted that Michael’s, bent 
over catching the flare of a match, was more deeply lined, 
more gaunt than ever. —A grand, strong head! ... It 
was showing strain. —Why? 

Then, with a quick lift, Michael’s head came up, and 
their eyes met. 

“How’s Pat?” Sherry asked him. “Julie has been tell¬ 
ing me that he has come head hunting.” . . . 

Michael was looking at him oddly out of those remark¬ 
able eyes of his. “Sorry about the portrait, Sherry,” he 
said slowly, apparently disregarding all reference to Pat 
English. 

“That’s all right, Mike ... so am I. . . . Julie told 
me. . . . She’s in better hands than mine, old man. 
Frankly, I envy Pat English. He’s a very great sculptor, 
Michael. —That’s not why I envy him, though.” 

Suddenly to Sherry came the disturbing thought of that 
letter he had given to Julie on the day when, meeting her 
at the garden gate with her arms full of hemlock branches, 
he had gone back with her to Windyhill, ostensibly to drink 
tea—but with the real purpose of proposing that he paint 
her portrait ... Of his coming back into the hall, to ask 
about the little bronze filly on Michael’s desk—Pat’s—to 
have Julie turn upon him a pair of startled, almost stricken 
eyes, in a white face, as she crumpled the letter slowly into 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


221 


a ball in her hand . . . Her words, at his question of 
quick concern: “It’s—just an explanation, Sherry—that’s 
all.” ... As it flashed by him again, now, words sprang 
spontaneously to his lips: 

“Mike, old man,—the day you and Toby were off in 
Vermont, when I went to ask Julie about doing her por¬ 
trait, I took her a letter that had got here by mistake. . . . 
She was rather badly knocked up by that letter, Mike. 
Naturally, I don’t want to pry into anything of Julie’s— 
But I hope it wasn’t bad news. She’s so damned plucky 
about things. . . . All she said to me, when I asked her, 
was: ‘It’s just an explanation, Sherry—that’s all.’ —Pretty 
stiff explanation to make her look the way she did then! 
. . . I’ve thought about it a lot.” 

He saw a queer slow smile twist Michael’s lips. “An 
explanation . . .” he was echoing, looking at Sherry as 
though he did not see him. Then, his eyes focussing 
suddenly upon him, he laughed shortly, unhappily. “No 
—” he said, as if just then aware that a question had been 
asked him; he shook his head. “Not bad news—as such, 
Sherry: a rather stupid slip—that’s all.” Then deliber¬ 
ately changing the subject: “Where’s Naomi? I’ve got to 
get back.” 

“Tea at Uncle David’s,” Sherry told him. 

“Well—” Michael gave a brief, disarming smile, “as 
old Joe says: ‘Tell her I was askin’ for her’ . . . ’Night, 
Sherry . . . Julie and I have kept you fairly busy.” He 
tossed his cigarette into the fire and swept his hat up from 
the bench. “Come on, Fanny,” he said, and abruptly made 
for the door into the brickway. 

Sherry straightened slowly up and followed him. “I’ll 


222 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


give your message to my old woman,” he said. And then, 
from the doorway, to the dim figure outside: “Don’t get 
mixed up with the skis— There’s a crop of ’em, pleached, 
along the wall.” 

Michael’s laugh came back to him, as he swung out into 
the world of snow and stars. 

. . . “What, in God’s name, are you up to—you two?” 
whispered Sherry in bewilderment, as he stared at Michael’s 
retreating figure, huge and dim in the cold dusk. 

. . . “They’re both of ’em unhappy as the devil, Naomi!” 
Standing before the fire in their bedroom, Ambrose Sheri¬ 
dan watched his wife sitting at her dressing table, brushing 
her waving soft hair. At the subdued vehemence of his 
words Naomi put down her brush and slowly turned to 
face him. 

“More so, Sherry?” she asked. 

“Well, darling—” he was looking soberly at her: “Pat 
English may turn out to be a sort of bull in a china shop. 
Quite innocently, but with the same devastating effect 
upon the china. . . . It’s a great pity old Toby picked 
this winter to come back to Windyhill. . . . Having come 
—why in hell does he stay, Naomi?” 

“Michael asked him to, Sherry,” she answered with some 
truth and less conviction. 

“Perhaps he did— But sometimes men do damned 
stupid things. . . .” 

A smile that was whimsical, faintly wistful, crept into 
Naomi’s eyes. She got up and went to the man before the 
fire. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she looked up 
into his face. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


223 

“Would it do a bit of good, dearest, if I spoke to brother 
Toby?” she asked simply. 

“King Canute ... ?” He smiled down into her eyes, 
loving her deeply . . . “What do you think?” 

“. . . That the tide is rising,” she said, and drew his 
head slowly down to hers. 


Chapter Ten 


i 

A FTER the night when Venus had hung like a fire 
balloon in a sea of clear, green sky above the river 
—a thaw had come. For a week the elements ran 
the gamut of all ways devised to rid the earth of snow and 
ice. In gray and penetrating damp the eaves dripped dis- 
hearteningly, and a foggy mist rose above the pools of snow 
water in the hollows. Then a watery sunshine gleamed 
mistily for a morning on spots of winter rye, incredibly 
green against the snow that still clung on. That night, on 
a wind from the west, came a drenching, spring-like rain; 
and in the morning, sailing behind droves of enormous 
fleecy clouds, the sun burst forth ever and again into patches 
of rainwashed blue. It shone down on a wet and spark¬ 
ling world, where every rut ran rivulets; where pools were 
ruffled and hemlock branches, freed of their snowy burden, 
blew and sprang in the boisterous wind; where a brave, tiny 
company of snowdrops had pushed up, close to the wall, be- 


224 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


225 

neath the window of the library at Windyhill. Julie had 
waked to hear a phoebe singing in the hemlock tree. . . . 
It was ridiculous, and thrilling, and altogether like Feb¬ 
ruary—fooling the earth into thinking, for one ecstatic 
moment, that spring had come. 

Julie stood on the doorstep, her face lifted to the fresh, 
earthy wind. Rain-washed and almost green, the hill 
swept up to the trees at the top, that thrust a tangle of 
dark branches against great rolls of pearly cloud. ... In 
three days March would be there—bringing Pat English 
back from South Carolina, where he had gone for a week 
of hunting, and to model a famous hound for an old 
Colonel whose straight-riding, fox-hunting days were over. 
He would come, with some clay, and those extraordinary 
eyes of his that delved into things in their curiously im¬ 
personal way . . . He would go into her father’s house— 
now hers—and would turn that lump of inert clay into the 
semblance of a human face, with a spark of divine fire that 
could make it hold the knowledge of Annunciation. Her 
face! —What irony! thought Julie, and laughed with a 
touch more of reckless misery . . . 

On the surface, things went on apparently just as usual 
at Windyhill. No casual observer could have told that 
it was not by chance that Michael never, now, saw Julie 
alone . . . nor that Julie found ever a way of avoiding 
such contingency for herself and Toby. 

They were going, that night, to Uncle David’s,—all of 
them—to celebrate Toby’s birthday. Uncle David, splendid 
old spartan, disregarding with fine equanimity what each 
added year might do to encroach upon the preserves of his 
own allotted span, was never happier than when observing 


226 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


some other’s birthday. And to-day Toby was thirty- 
four. . . . 

At this point in Julie’s thoughts the sun ducked behind 
a great, wind-driven cloud. She watched, in troubled 
abstraction, the shadows that roved over the hill—up to 
the greenness of the winter rye, dimming momentarily the 
gleam of white at the top, that was the last of the snow to 
linger, in a thin line, along the north side of the wall. Tess, 
having done with nosing about the winter covering of a 
flower bed, came trotting up and sat down close at Julie’s 
feet. The little act of devotion prodded through the girl’s 
absorption. She looked down with a rueful laugh at the 
stolid small back presented to her. “Seems to be our lot 
to stop by, these days, Tess,” she observed. Then, her 
eyes caught by the snowdrops along the wall under the 
window, she gave a gasp of delight. “You darlings!” she 
whispered, and leaned swiftly to look more closely. How 
could such frail, perishable petals do such brave things? 
—Regardless of snow and sleet, with such utter trust, to 
come poking up through the brown mold . . . The ten 
or twelve tiny down-dropped heads seemed to be keeping 
up a faint fairy bobbing in the gusty wind. . . . They 
would be out, in the sheltered corner by the big bush of 
box ... at the house over the hill! ... A freed brook 
would be rushing and gurgling over the boulders beneath 
the hemlock . . . swirling stilly into its pool below the 
foot-bridge . . . 

Yes, there they were! A patch of white and green, wet 
and fresh and adorable, at the foot of the old box bush; 
and the grass, where the snow had lain, wet after the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


227 

drenching rain of the night, was faintly green against the 
house. How could these things happen, in February? 
Julie crouched beside the snowdrops and lifted away some 
sodden leaves, bringing to light three more pale little 
sprouts. 

Straightening up, she stood looking down the pathway 
between the covered box, past the tall bare branches of the 
lilacs at the end. The sun sailed out from behind a cloud 
and glistened for a moment on the wet flags. A pool of rain 
water, in a hollowed flag halfway down the walk, caught 
the flicker of gold on its wind-ruffled surface. —How 
fragrant it was—of wet earth, and budding things—this big, 
clean wind, blowing over the country she loved! Was 
that the brook? that hollow chuckle? It must be. . . . 
Oh, God, she loved it! ... and she was very unhappy . . . 
and it hurt . . . 

She turned suddenly away and went up to the old green 
door. Fitting the heavy key into the lock, she knew its 
creaking twist beneath her fingers. She lifted the latch and 
went in. 

Leaving the door wide to the freshness of the morning, 
she crossed the hall to a narrow door of two deep panels 
tucked in the sheathing to the left of the fireplace. Her 
hand on the latch, Julie sent an involuntary look toward 
the hearth: those smooth, square tiles, sunk into dips and 
hollows. And then for a moment, forgetting her mission 
—Pat English, Michael, all the present—a wave of terrible 
homesick loneliness swept her . . . There was the squat red 
footstool at the other end of the hearth, with its familiar 
gentle list to one side ... the pine wood box, with panels, 
against the smoky old sheathing beyond , , . the ladder- 


228 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


back chair with arms, the black paint worn off where many 
hands had rested, the wood become smooth as satin . . . 
It was turned half away from the fire ... as though 
someone—ah, who but her father?—had only just got up 
and gone out to the brook—the orchard. . . . Oh—the 
poignant loneliness of living here without her father had 
somehow been more bearable, because understandable and 
real, than the loneliness of living with someone you loved— 
who did not love you. . . . Why had she done this thing? 
—Why had Michael asked her to? ... And now even 
this old house she loved, she owed to Michael . . . through 
what he had done for her father. And it seemed, after 
all, that she had nothing to give him in return. ... In 
some subtle way, she was only hurting him. What had 
she done? What had come to Michael, to so hurt and 
change him? . . . Perhaps after Pat English went away— 
Perhaps it were for the best that Michael had made hers 
this house that faced the brook and the hill climbing to 
meet the sky. She lifted her head, and turning looked 
out through the open doorway. A branch of hemlock 
thrusting darkly across a sweep of hill ... a patch of 
windswept blue . . . one towering cloud,—these things, 
changing as God bid them with the sun’s way and the 
moon’s, were yet enduring, and, while she had eyes to 
see and ears to hear, could bring to her heart a quickening 
stir of swift, sharp joy . . . The freshness of wet woods 
after rain . . . white violets in the spring, and cool fra¬ 
grance of apple blossoms . . . dewy fields at dusk, and 
dawn climbing over the hill ... the flicker of moonlight in 
tall summer trees ... the murmur of running water ... a 
bird’s waking to sing . . . Julie stirred now and caught 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


229 

her breath sharply . . . “Take care of to-day.” She was 
whispering some words of her father’s. With a smile that 
was ruefully aware of her moment’s weakness, she turned 
back to the work at hand: that of preparing the old house 
to receive once more under the shelter of its roof that 
tawny-eyed boy who had gone away—to come again, a 
famous sculptor. 


2 

No wonder, she thought, as she stood at one end of the 
long, low room, that Pat English should want, of all places 
on earth, to work in this particular one. 

The sheathing, long ago painted old Indian red, had 
dimmed and worn with time to an indescribably dusky 
warmth. The wide boards of the floor, unpainted, but 
waxed and trodden to a depth of ruddy brown, gave 
further feeling of warmth and color. In the great fire¬ 
place, where Julie could stand and look up to a patch of 
sky, in her great-grandmother Byrd’s day, cooking had 
been done in iron kettles upon those cranes, bread baked, 
and turkeys roasted, in the brick ovens at either side . . . 
She remembered her grandmother telling her stories in 
this old room ... of her great-grandfather, another Julian 
Byrd, who, on that long-ago 18th of April, had caught 
the word flung from the rider who galloped through a 
sleeping spring countryside . . . and snatching down, from 
where it still hung to-day, on its nail above the fireplace, 
his flintlock and powder-horn, had hustled a handful of 
sleep-befogged farm hands forth into a night that was to 
make history . . . Stories of her own time, of her older 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


230 

brother, Jonathan Byrd, leaving this same house at the call 
from Abraham Lincoln ... of the battles of Bull Run and 
Antietam ... of the flag she had helped to make, and the 
lint she had scraped . . . and of the day her brother 
Jonathan had come back a captain, but with the dark blue 
sleeve of his uniform, where his left arm should have been, 
pinned upon his shoulder. Julie’s eyes went now invol¬ 
untarily to the deep wing chair at the corner of the hearth, 
where once had sat that little upright figure, her eyes 
undimmed, and still intrepid, for all their eighty years,— 
eyes as green as those of the child who listened, absorbed, 
on a three-legged stool at her knee, telling in simple, 
forceful words of her far-off childhood—of history in the 
making. . . . And now, of all the Byrds, only Julie and 
her father’s older sister were left . . . gay, whimsical, lovely 
Aunt Anne, who had married Tom Dulaney and gone to 
Maryland, to that old beautiful place on the Eastern Shore. 
She lived there still, with Paul, her only son. Humor¬ 
ous, fox-hunting Tom Dulaney had been dead for fifteen 
years. 

As she stood there for a further moment, her mind filled 
with vivid, happy pictures of the past, Julie’s eyes traveled 
lovingly about the room. To the west, two deepest win¬ 
dows—the old thin glass all swirls and bubbles—faintly dis¬ 
torted through their small panes glimpses of the orchard 
and pine-clad hill. There, too, a door (it was made of 
two layers of oak, one planked across, one up and down, 
and had still the old wooden latch and leather latch-string 
that had been the delight of Julie’s childhood) opened on 
to a bricked jog between the end of the house and the 
line of sheds built out at right angles to the house, making 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


231 

a protection to the north. At the corner of the woodshed, 
almost against its mossy gray roof, leaned the first of the 
three seckel pear trees. Julie’s eyes came back from the 
wet slope of roof and the twisted pear tree, and, wistful 
with remembering, went slowly about the room ... It 
was so unspoiled. Built in 1704, by Christopher Byrd, 
the great-grandfather of that Julian who had heard the cry 
of Paul Revere and the clatter of his hard-ridden horse’s 
hoofs—having known the vicissitudes of chance and change 
through more than two centuries—it stood, now, miracu¬ 
lously unharmed. . . . Julie’s eyes rested for a moment 
on a sturdy, crude candlestand that had belonged to that 
Christopher of long ago . . . The chair that had been 
her father’s, the comb-back Windsor rocking-chair, painted 
a dull green, that had been her mother’s . . . the copper 
warming-pan with an iron handle that stood beyond the 
brick ovens, against the wall . . . the finely wrought 
flower-wreathed sampler marked ‘J* M. B.’ with the date, 
1774, in faded, dim blue numerals, that hung above it on 
the wall . . . the pewter, of once daily use, on the shelves 
of the dresser at the end of the room . . . the tall clock 
in a pine frame (with a bull’s-eye of greenish glass in the 
front panel) that could still tick out the slow passing of 
time . . . the deep blue Staffordshire plates standing along 
the back of the narrow shelf above the fireplace, the two 
old purple rum glasses, and the flat saucer-candlestick of 
brass, with a long handle, that always stood at the end,— 
all—all of these old things had belonged . . . 

Julie’s eyes dwelt for a moment on the door at the end of 
the room, to the left of the tall clock in the corner,—Pat’s 
room. The minute kitchen bedroom of long ago. She 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


232 

came back with an uncomfortable jolt to the present. 
—Would Pat English find it a room light enough to work 
in?—this old-time kitchen, with its low ceiling, and two 
great smoke-darkened beams? Then she gave a rueful 
laugh—at herself, for holding any such doubt. Pat knew 
these things—for himself. For six years, the room beyond 
that door had been his. He had slept there, for months 
at a time. Since, at the age of sixteen, his dark hair stand¬ 
ing fiercely awry, his golden cats’ eyes struggling, with a 
savage but pitiful blind of hardness, to suppress the glitter 
of tears and to ward off any sign of sympathy that might 
be proffered, he had come here straight from his father’s 
grave—an orphan—to his dead father’s oldest friend, Julian 
Byrd. 

. . . And here he was, after nearly fifteen years (Julie 
had not seen him for five), a sculptor, acknowledged by two 
continents; but with his dark hair still awry, his golden 
eyes still ablaze—and, oh, how like him!—to catch a smile, 
a thing as fleeting, as ephemeral as smoke, and imprison it 
in clay—had come three thousand miles! 

Tess suddenly barked,—a foolish little sharp bark. 
—Who was that stomping across the hall? Julie swung 
about to find Jane Challoner surveying her, with quizzical 
amusement, from the doorway. 

“Come in, Jane,” she invited with a laugh. “I hope 
you’ve got a cigarette on you?” 

With a throaty chuckle, Jane plunged her hand into a 
capacious pocket and tossed a package to Julie. “Matches 
are in it,” she said, and coming into the room, walked over 
to the fireplace and took down from the shelf above, a 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 33 

small figure in bronze of an Irish terrier with a rakish 
cocked head. Still holding it, she sent an inimitable glance 
at Julie. 

“My fingers itch to possess this, every time I see it! 
Wasn’t it the first thing Pat ever had cast—for your father?” 

Julie nodded. “He never did anything better, of a dog, 
either,” she observed. “Do you remember Rufus?” 

Jane dropped her voice and pulled in her chin. “Do I 
remember Rufus! . . . Do I remember the first fox’s brush 
I ever got! —Of course I do!” She put the little figure 
back and turned swiftly on Julie who had sunk down into 
the wide reveal of the window. 

“What’s this about Pat coming here to do your head for 
some extraordinary figure he’s come a cropper over in 
Paris? ... Is there any truth in it, or is it just one of 
Pat’s fabulous jokes?” 

Julie was looking whimsically at the woman before the 
hearth. She took off her hat and leaned her head against 
the old inside shutter. “It may be a joke,—one of Pat’s 
huge ones,” she said serenely—“to do such a thing. But 
it’s true that he’s going to.” 

“I think you both must be perfectly cracked!” Jane 
launched the words with entertaining vehemence. “The 
clay will be, anyway, with the cold—” She looked about 
her as though the cold had actually become palpable. 

Julie smiled, and took a pull at her cigarette. “Go on, 
Jane,” she encouraged. With a half laugh and a shrug of 
her thin shoulders, Jane did. “You’ll get pneumonia, and 
die young! —Perhaps, if he hurries, Pat can just manage 
to catch your Mona Lisa smile, first, and so perpetuate it 


I 


234 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


and his name— Oh, my God—” she finished, her pale 
eyes fixed in droll resignation on Julie, “what crazy crea¬ 
tures artist people are!—and how amusing!” 

“Here are your cigarettes,” was Julie’s answer to this 
outburst, as she tossed the package across to its owner. 
“You had better have one while I tell you something 
sensible to comfort you. . . . When I come here to sit— 
or stand, as the case may be—it won’t—be—cold. Any 
more than Windyhill, or your house. So—eliminate the 
pneumonia, Jane . . . though I don’t say, for a moment, 
that I’m not cracked ... In fact, I’m very sure I am.” 

But above Julie’s words Jane’s sharper ears had caught a 
sound. She sent a grin of acknowledged defeat to the girl 
at the window, and moving to the door looked out into 
the hall. 

“Hello, Mike!” she said suddenly. “Come in and settle 
an argument.” There came the patter of paws across the 
bare floor beyond Jane, and Fanny, nosing her way past 
that thin figure in tweeds, bounded into the room and up 
to Julie. 

“. . . The door was open . . . and I wondered—” came 
Michael’s voice, from the hall. And then: “Where’s 
Julie?” 

Sitting there on the wide ledge of the window, Julie felt 
somehow absurdly trapped. . . . What was Jane going 
to say? 


3 


“Here she is!” Jane drew aside as Michael came up, and 
Julie saw his big shoulders crowding the narrow doorway. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 35 

For a moment, as he looked at Jane, a smile broke over 
his face, deepening the lines beside his mouth. 

“There she sits, Mike,” Jane indicated with a jerk of her 
cigarette, “getting inured to this graveyard atmosphere, 
against the business of having her famous smile tucked 
into a lump of clay.” She shrugged and looked up with 
a grimace at the man before her. 

“Well—” said Michael, “And why not?” For a brief 
moment, as his eyes met hers, Julie caught a spark of 
amused collusion. As though, was her swift thought, he 
were a husband who frankly loved his wife, and stood up 
for her before a third: Jane. It was decent of him to do 
it. . . . Then he had turned to Jane. “It won’t be cold 
here,” he was saying, casual and reassuring. 

“No—” Jane laughed, “I don’t suppose it really will.” 
Then walking over to the hearth, she dropped her cigar¬ 
ette and trod it out on the bricks. Suddenly, as though an 
idea had but that moment caught her, she swung about to 
look at Julie. . . . Her head down-tilted, its smooth 
contour silhouetted against the small-paned window at her 
back, as though she had forgotten them both, and time was 
not, Julie was looking in a sort of trance at Tess, who 
crouched resignedly at her feet. Michael had calmly 
walked past to the other end of the room, and was gazing 
in silence, and with grave interest, at a picture hanging 
there: the bold, vigorous sketch in charcoal, on a piece of 
brown paper, of a rearing colt on a halter, the slim body 
of the lad who held him, leaning to throw every ounce of 
weight upon the rope. ... It was as if a spell had been 
cast over the room—over them all, thought Jane. The 
utter silence seemed actually for a moment to stay the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


236 

words that had sprung to her lips. —Absurd! She 
laughed softly, and broke through the enchantment. 

“You can quote the little rhyme about the cat who was 
killed ... if you want to, Cocks”—(Ah! they had waked, 
those others)—“But do you mind telling me what you’re 
goin’ to do with this old treasure of a house? I only ask 
because I know someone who would be terribly keen to 
have it, if ever—” 

Michael literally whirled about. “God, no, Jane! It’s 
not for sale—” Then with a short laugh, turning to the 
silent figure in the window, “Or is it, Julie?” he asked 
queerly. 

“Of course not, Michael,” Julie found herself saying, and 
knew, strangely, that she had given Michael cause for 
great relief. Why, she did not at the moment ask herself. 

“Might live here in the summer,” she offered lightly, look¬ 
ing at Jane. “I didn’t realize—quite—how keen Mike was 
about the old house . . .” 

“Yes—I am,” he said succinctly; and turning to Jane, 
completely ignoring that but the moment before he had 
snapped up with extraordinary and unexpected asperity 
her most innocent question—calmly changed the subject. 

“Hear you’ve got a grand filly, Jane—out of old May- 
fair ...” 

“Come and see her,” suggested Jane, with extreme friend¬ 
liness, lighting another of her endless cigarettes. 

“I’ll be ready when you come back, Michael,” put in 
Julie. “I have to look up a thing or two, against Pat’s 
coming.” 

... Was Michael going to demur? He started to 
speak, then, evidently thinking better of it, broke off and 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 37 

looked at Julie for a moment of silent consideration. “I’d 
like to, Jane,’’ he said at last, without turning his head. 

What had made Michael swing, so almost savagely, on 
Jane, with his vehement “God no!”? thought a troubled 
Julie, as she looked to the blankets and appurtenances of 
the little room that would be Pat’s. —What could it be 
to Michael what became of this old house? She stood for 
a minute at the window, looking out across the bare trees 
of the orchard to a great airy cloud sailing high over a 
pine tree on the slope beyond. Then turning slowly away, 
she went about the further business of getting the house 
ready to receive Pat English and his “lump of clay”. 


4 

She was sitting beside him. They were going down the 
hill, and a great honey-colored full moon kept pace with 
the car, slipping behind the trees to the east, sliding into 
the open over farms and haycocks—remote, never slacken¬ 
ing the pace that was theirs. 

It stirred Michael unspeakably to have Julie there beside 
him, the faint, unconscious pressure of her shoulder against 
his as they swung about a curve, or swerved to pass some 
other car. . . . How could she help knowing how she 
was pulling him—every bit of him—to her! He wanted 
to speak to her, to hear her voice—answering . . . But 
he was dumb . . . He couldn’t. Her head half turned 
from him, looking out at the moon riding with them up 
there ... at the woods and moonlit fields and farms slid- 


238 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

ing past, she seemed quite unconscious of his presence. 
. . . She wore no hat. Faintly there came to him the 
cool subtlety of white violets which was a part of her. He 
had not once looked at her. He did not have to . . . He 
knew it all— Every little characteristic gesture. Her 
smooth, burnished hair . . . that line of the part . . . the 
darkness of her lashes . . . her fugitive smile that was so 
intriguing . . . the lovely alluring lines of her face. . . . 
What went on behind the long green eyes that laughed 
and teased, or went off, as now, aloof, unneedful of another 
human being? . . . God—if he could know! . . . The 
wind was rising. Coming out into the open where the 
road swept in a curve through fields, it rushed coldly at 
them. “What a night, Michael!” Without turning to 
him, Julie was speaking. —“It’s blowing up colder.” 

“Are you warm enough, Julie?” he asked her. 

“Oh, yes—” she turned her face to him then: “I was just 
thinking how such days fool us. We want the spring, so 
badly ... A day like this holds it out in the palm of its 
hand. You reach for it—and it’s flicked away. Instead, 
a cold wind blows a handful of hail in your face.” She 
gave a rueful laugh. “It’s a lot like life—isn’t it, Mike?” 

“Yes—a lot!” His words, their swift unforeseen vehe¬ 
mence, annoyed him. “Have to do some chain-light¬ 
ning grabbing before it’s flicked away,” he finished, forc¬ 
ing his tone to lightness, and heard Julie’s soft amused 
laugh. 

“We cry for the moon,” she said, her head once more 
tilted away, and he felt the slight lift of her shoulder as 
she shrugged. “And she?—he?—I never could make up 
my mind which—runs along over the hilltops and the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


239 

woods . . . laughing: ‘Silly children, I’m here to light 
you, not to burn your fingers’ .... It’s right, I suppose, 
Michael.” They were crossing the bridge, and for a second 
caught the misty shine of moonlight on ice and dark water. 
“If we could only keep our course with such laughing con¬ 
stancy ...” The words trailed off into the rush of the 
wind, and Julie was quiet. 

An overwhelming desire swept Michael, to turn and take 
her in his arm ... to crush her close, and hold her there 
—his ... so that no man— How could he talk of the 
moon—or life? His longing for her beat about him until 
there was nothing else . . . and it almost spoke aloud 
. . . He must not let this silence grow. Like a spar to a 
man drowning, there floated past him the thought of his 
vehement words of that morning. He grasped it franti¬ 
cally and plunged ahead: 

“Julie—” he tried to make his voice appear casual— 
“I must have sounded rather foolish this morning, snap¬ 
ping off Jane’s head about your house. It was stupid and 
unnecessary . . .” 

They were coming to the town, passing the old square 
tavern at the turn. The lights shone out. The tang of 
woodsmoke was in the wind . . . 

“After all, Michael,” Julie was speaking evenly, her face 
averted, “you are my husband. You have the right to say, 
and do . . . lots of things.” (Was she sincere, or did she 
laugh?) “I only wondered why you cared ... so much 
. . .” Slowly, then, she turned to him. “Was it because 
—for me to have a place of my own ... to go to, Michael?” 

He did not dare to move his head. He could not look 
at her ... or she must see—everything. . . . What had 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


240 

made her say that? How could she know—? —A place 
to go to! 

His eyes fastened on the light thrown before them 
(they had left the town behind and were rushing along now 
through the flat low country beyond), with every ounce of 
his control put forth, he spoke: 

“If you want to take it that way, Julie” . . . 

He knew that her eyes were upon his face . . . Failing 
of the help she perhaps had sought—which he could not 
give—she began to speak: 

“Oh, Michael—” her voice was low and appealing— 
“Can’t we be friends, even? If not . . 

It had actually come, thought Michael desperately. And 
there, before them, was Uncle David’s gate . . . the old 
white house, dwarfed by its enormous hemlocks. Good 
God! . . . what could he say? He swerved sharply to 
avoid a wheelbarrow in the shadow beyond the gatepost, 
and dragged on the brakes. A figure, silhouetted for a 
moment against the light from the open doorway, was 
bounding toward them. . . . “Did you hit it, Mike?” 
came a troubled boyish voice ... It was Micky. 

“Who in hell left it there?” snapped Michael with sur¬ 
prising crispness. 

“I did,” answered the irrepressible Micky, for once 
shocked into meekness. He dashed on past them to the 
offending wheelbarrow, and they heard him trundle it off 
toward a shed. It squeaked atrociously, in protest. Mi¬ 
chael, staring after the retreating figure, saw the boy 
emerge from the shadow into a splash of moonlight. In 
swift penitence for his sharp words, he turned to Julie. 

She was standing beside the car, in the cool moonlight, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


241 

the dark fur cloak she wore, wrapped close about her. 
She was looking at him ... Was she smiling? 

Suddenly Michael laughed. “Did you ever know such a 
crosspatch, Julie?” He slid out and stood looking down 
into her face. . . . She was not smiling . . . Young 
Micky was running back to them. “Terribly sorry, Mike,” 
he gasped. 

“You needn’t be, old fellar,” Michael told him, giving 
the boy’s shoulder a friendly shake . . . 

Micky heaved a sigh of genuine relief. “Lordy!” he 
burst out comically, “how the squeal of your brakes made 
my stomach ache! ... I was bringing in the plants from 
the greenhouse.” (They were all three now walking 
toward the house). “Uncle David’s pet cherry-colored 
geraniums. I forgot all about the damn thing . . .” 

With her foot on the doorstep, Julie laughed softly back 
at them. “Does you good to run into a wheelbarrow . . . 
now and then, Micky,” she said. 

Michael heard her with a curious wonder. 


5 

There were too many of them, to sit demurely strung 
about the table. Toby’s birthday had obligingly fallen on 
a Saturday, and seven Sheridans were there. 

In the low, plant-filled dining room (plenty of sun came 
in at its western windows for David Cockrane’s famous 
geraniums), the flames of the candles in the two branch¬ 
ing silver candelabra shone mistily on the old mahogany 
table heaped with every device known to the art of Ellen 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


242 

to tempt the eye, and cause the downfall, of man. The 
lovely shallow bowl of pewter, that had been made for 
Great-uncle William Cochrane by Samuel Danforth him¬ 
self, was filled with ruddy apples and (to Pip’s silent de¬ 
light) great bunches of white and purple grapes. About 
it were ranged ham, tongue, salads, a quivering mound of 
aspic flanked by the blue Canton dish filled with baked 
potatoes (Toby adored them) and the blue cow pitcher 
filled with cream. There were crisp brown rolls and 
pats of fresh butter. There were nuts, and prunes, and 
figs (the pressed ones that Naomi loved), and thin, apricot 
wafers (for Julie). Uncle David and old Ellen, with 
their heads together, had thought of everyone. 

“Whew!” whistled stocky Martin as he stood at gaze. 
And from above the sideboard at his back, the merry eyes 
of a young officer in the blue uniform of the Union Army 
(Captain Martin Cochrane, from whom the boy had his 
name) seemed to twinkle amused assent. 

“What is this heavenly concoction, Uncle David?” asked 
Naomi, tasting some of the aspic Toby had put upon her 
plate. 

“I don’t know,” confessed the old man, with a smile, 
“you will have to ask Ellen, my dear.” 

But Martin, his fair thatch bent over his plate, cocked 
an eye at his mother. “I was there when Ellen and Sophie 
were dumping it out of the white mold thing . . His 
words came slightly muffled by some of the very dish in 
question. “It’s chicken and truffles, Ma. —Funny things, 
truffles!” He considered a large piece speared on his 
fork, then popped it into his mouth. “Darn good, when 
you get used to ’em!” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


243 


“Young epicure!” Toby ruffled the boy’s hair. 

“What’s that?” asked Martin, still chewing on the 
truffle. 

“Greedy-gut,” obliged Micky from beyond, giving his 
young brother a prod in the ribs, that was nearly disastrous 
to the contents of the latter’s plate. 

“Here now, boys—” interposed their father cheerfully, 
“none o’ that!” 

Tom had dragged Michael over to the fire, and stand¬ 
ing on the hearth, plate in hand, had plunged into a dis¬ 
cussion on the deflation of the dollar. 

Pip, regardless of food, as always when interested in 
something, brought Julie a plate filled neatly, a roll sitting 
perkily on the rim, and, forgetting to go back for his own, 
sat down beside her under a jungle of superb geraniums in 
the window, to burst straightway into further questions on 
a subject that had been interrupted: Pat English sculping 
Julie’s head to take to Paris. 

Laughing, Julie beckoned to Tim, quietly eating, a little 
apart from them all. “Get this young scatter-brain some¬ 
thing to chew on, Timmy, will you?” But of course 
Pip jumped up, as she had known he would, grinned, and 
departed . . . 

Her eyes went immediately to Michael. She forgot 
Pip, and all else, as she watched the big figure in dinner 
clothes standing before the fire. Turned sidewise, he 
leaned one shoulder against the low mantelpiece, looking 
down now and then from Tom to his plate. His splendid 
head was dark against the creamy white of the panel above. 
The light of a candle near him on the shelf shone on his 
crisp hair and strong, thin face. He looked tired. Ap- 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


244 

parently listening intently to what Tom had to propound 
on a serious matter, Julie knew by the curious, intense 
preoccupation of that lean profile that he was not there 
at all. He could do that so well! She knew all about it. 
If only that apartness could be as satisfying to her as to 
the boy eating and talking there, oblivious and content, 
beside him! He had always had a way of going off like 
that, even as a boy. But then it had only given a sense 
of repose and peacefulness . . . not getting in the way of 
things. Now, thought Julie, with a hopeless feeling of 
frustration, it took him straight away out of her reach 
. . . where he seemed to want to be. What could she 
do? What was the best for them both,—for her to go— 
or to stay? . . . Toby was standing before her—had evi¬ 
dently been speaking to her. She turned her head and 
looked at him. . . . How extraordinarily good-looking he 
was! she thought quickly. A reckless sort of devil, too! 
A sparkle of that recklessness was there, now, in the eyes 
bent upon her. 

“. . . Well—?” he gave a short laugh. 

“Well—?” she echoed, and laughed, too. “I’ll have to 
admit it, Toby . . .” 

She knew, suddenly, that he had not even heard her. 
—Oh! he shouldn’t look at her like that? . . . And she 
couldn’t do anything so simple as tell him so. She must 
just appear not to notice. . . . “Sit down, Toby,” she said 
lightly, turning to pat the chair Pip had left. And, with 
a smile, faintly mischievous, that totally disregarded the 
whole situation: “‘Let’s talk it over’ . . she quoted. 

But Toby did not sit down. “What’s the matter, Julie?” 
he asked queerly, instead. “You can’t just put me off like 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


245 

that ... You were sitting here looking as though you’d 
lost your last friend. —Got a headache, or something?” 
he finished awkwardly. 

She knew a thrust of desperate wonder as to how she 
was going to handle things . . . and then, that she must 
keep a light touch. “No—” Somehow she achieved a 
sober gravity that was really amusing, as she raised her 
eyes to Toby (Pip was coming back, thank God!), “I 
was just wondering . . . whether I’d have some more 
chicken ... or try a slice of tongue . . .” 

“Quite momentous!” His voice came oddly sharp. 
Then, as though flicking over a page of no import: “Where 
did you get that grand little ‘Toby’ jug you gave me?” 

“Right in our own town . . . from old Miss Nichols,” 
answered Julie, her heart still beating faster than its 
wont, at her sudden escape from a danger that had 
seemed so imminent. “She always had a soft spot in her 
spinster heart for your curly head, Toby. She let me 
have it for you.” 

“I love it,” he answered simply. Then he turned on 
his heel and walked away. 

Suddenly, across the width of the room, Julie’s eyes 
met another pair, lighted with a kindly old twinkle. David 
Cochrane raised the glass he held, in a silent toast. She 
smiled. He bowed his fine old head, and drank to her. 
. . . Pip, balancing a plate on three fingers and carrying a 
glass of milk, bore down upon her. Julie sighed, and then 
a faint smile touched her lips. Thank God for Pips and 
Uncle Davids! . . . “What did you get, Pip!” she asked. 

“Everything!” grinned Pip, and slid down beside her. 
“Go on, Julie.” 


• « • 


246 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


6 

Toby had gone back into the dining room, with the 
empty coflee cups. The little handleless cups of Lowestoft, 
with their blue, star-filled border, their bird over the 
blue lozenge with its gold ‘C’, that had, so far, even with 
slap-dash, coffee-drinking boys, miraculously escaped calam¬ 
ity. David Cochrane used his possessions . . . however 
rare, with a fine disregard of user or occasion, and with, 
thus far, extraordinary success. . . . Michael was playing 
the old piano in the firelit, paneled parlor, and they were 
all dancing and rioting about to the merry tinkle of 
the thin old notes. Julie was dancing amusedly with 
Sherry . . . teasing and gay. Toby had watched her . . . 
wanting, with every ounce of him, to be in Sherry’s shoes 
. . . God, what a mess it all was! You couldn’t make 
a move without thinking—thinking! He was sick of it, 
—fed up with this stupid, cautious way of going. What 
difference did it make to anyone, anyway! —Michael— 
Julie? What did they care if—! He had moved to the 
fireplace, and leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece stared 
mutinously down at the flicker of the firelight on the brass 
tops of the andirons. Out of it he gave a grunt of irony: 
—Windyhill—like this! Would to God he had never come 
home! . . . He knew that someone had come to the door 
. . . “There it is!” It was Naomi’s cheerful voice. And 
turning, he saw his sister swoop on something that had 
fallen to the floor beyond the table. “Handkerchief,” she 
explained, and coming up to him put her hand on his 
sleeve. “It’s terribly nice to have you here again for your 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


247 

birthday, Toby,” she said fondly; “I’ve missed you . . 

She wore a delicious soft thing of lavender and blue, 
like a spray of delphinium. He wanted to tell her how 
nice she looked, and that he had missed her, too. But 
he couldn’t. He was bitter against all the world, and 
reckless of hurting even Naomi. He gave a short, scorn¬ 
ful laugh and looked down again at the flickering shine 
of the andirons. “Have you?” he said. 

Naomi’s hand dropped slowly from his arm. “What 
is it, old man?” she asked quietly. “Is it Julie?” 

He jerked up his head. “How did you know!” He 
had hurled the words at her, and was staring furiously. 

Naomi only gave a sorry shake of her head, holding 
her eyes somberly on his. “My dear . . .” she whispered. 

Toby’s head still up-flung, a reckless sparkle leaped to his 
eyes. “Yes, I love her!” he said defiantly, uncaring. 
“Who’s goin’ to stop me! Not she—and certainly not 
Michael!” he finished bitterly. 

Naomi, with heaven-sent wisdom, stood quietly looking 
past him into the fire. “Do you want to tell me?” she 
asked simply, at last. 

“It’s just an inconceivably God-awful mess!” he burst 
out. He flung away and took a few steps, then wheeled 
back. “I can’t understand it. —Michael’s just a stone 
image,— stone, I tell you, Naomi! By God! I’m not. I’m 
human— Too damned human ... to stick it. . . .” 

Without stirring, Naomi spoke: “Why must you, my 
dear?” she asked very gently. 

“Why must I?” He whipped the words out in savage 
derision, and then went on blindly, “Oh, you think I’m 
a skunk—a hanger-on—” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


248 

“No,” came the calm answer. 

“I tried to go—” his voice broke on a note of intolerable 
misery—“and Mike said— He doesn’t dream — 

“Never mind, Naomi.” He was speaking harshly again. 
He knew it, and he did not care. He was through with 
it all—fighting and doubting. 

“Let the best man win, I say!” 

Very slowly Naomi turned and put her hand once more 
upon her brother’s arm. “Toby,” she said, and it was to 
Toby strangely as though his mother spoke. “Ah, Toby 
—don’t. They are married . . .” 

“Married!” The word was scorn itself. 

Naomi looked at him a moment with lovely, grave eyes; 
then she spoke, more gently still: “Yes, Toby . . . even 
so.” 

The brief, quiet words caught Toby and held him, as 
nothing else then could have done. He looked at his 
sister with a curious expression. The reckless rebellion 
slowly died within him, leaving a sort of blank despair. 
He fetched a great sigh, and taking her chin between his 
fingers turned her face up to his. “You’re damned de¬ 
cent,” he said. 

“So are you, thank God!” Toby saw the tears shin¬ 
ing .. . 

“Come and dance,” he said jerkily—“to Mike’s piping.” 


7 

The Sheridans had gone. Toby, too—walking off in 
the bright moonlight with Pip, because he loved the old 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


249 

town with the lights shining out of the little houses. 
“Makes me feel like a kid again, Uncle David,” he had 
said, with a laugh. 

And now Julie was playing. Something old David 
Cochrane had asked for. With his retriever (mother to 
Fanny, and grandmother of Pip’s wedding present to 
Julie), fat past belief, snoring faintly at his feet, the old 
man rocked gently and happily in the Windsor chair 
with a comb back, at the corner of the hearth . . . dream¬ 
ing of the past. From the deep leather armchair at the 
other side of the fireplace, with the bobtailed tortoise¬ 
shell cat curled up on his knees, Michael could see them 
both: the old, happy, dreaming man he loved, his white 
head resting against the back of the chair, his thin, fine, 
old hand, meticulously holding the stem of his straight¬ 
stemmed pipe, the deep red of a silk sock catching 
the firelight, as he rocked, and the space of ankle length¬ 
ened with the motion—and Julie. . . . The light of the 
candles in the tall branched candlestick of twisted silver 
that stood on the piano gleamed on her smooth hair. 
Her face, half turned from him, was pale and lovely against 
the dim blue of a curtain . . . She was miles from him 
. . . miles from them all . . . the old man, gently rocking, 
the bobtailed cat, the sleeping dog, on the rug, and him 
. . . She might have been quite alone. She seemed to 
need no one. Her head lifted . . . looking of? into the 
dusky corner of the room, she sang—as a bird sings—joy¬ 
ously, loving it . . . unself-conscious and free. So thought 
Michael. 

. . . She had been like that all the evening. Gay and 
inconsequent. Keeping them all—the boys, Sherry, and 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


250 

Uncle David—and, at last, Toby, when he had snapped 
out of one of his funny glum fits—laughing and fascinated 
. . . Always just out of reach. Serenely unconscious of 
it, of him, too. And he was so achingly conscious of her 
—of what she said, or did not say, of where she was, and 
what she did . . . He dragged his eyes away from her 
now and dropped them to the ball of fur curled up on 
his knees. His pipe had gone out. He did not even 
bother to light it again . . . Julie had stopped singing, 
and was playing, very softly, a drowsy lullaby. Michael 
could hear the tiny creak of Uncle David’s chair, as the 
old man rocked, listening and content. Julie played on 
. . . that lilting old song to hush a baby to sleep. A log 
fell apart. The tall clock in the hall began to strike . . . 
Michael had not the remotest idea what time it was. With 
a satisfying sequence of chords, Julie stopped playing, and 
turning to them was speaking. Michael lifted his head. 

“Gentlemen, it grows late,” she said. “Doesn’t it, Mi¬ 
chael?” deferring to him. She got up from the piano, 
and leaning toward the candlestick sent a half-questioning 
glance at David Cochrane, who had got to his feet. 

“Shall I blow out your candles for you, Uncle David?” 
she asked; “I’m a very frugal person . . . about candles.” 

The old man chuckled. “So am I,” he confessed, with 
delight for her. And, his eyes a-twinkle, watched Julie 
blow out all three candle flames. 

She came over then to the fire, where they were. Michael 
got up and put the bobtailed cat into his chair. Julie 
walked slowly across to David Cochrane and stood looking 
up at him with that faint smile about her lips. “I’ve had 
a beautiful time, Uncle David,” she said; “who could 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


251 

help it, in your house? . . . You’re rather a darling, you 
know, and I’ve always wanted to tell you so. Now I 
can.” David Cochrane bent and kissed her on her fore¬ 
head. “Funny child!” he said as he straightened up again. 
“Isn’t she, Mike?” And Michael had to meet the happy 
old eyes with a smile and a light word to match. 

Suddenly his uncle swung round to look at Julie. “Why 
should you two have to go home to-night?” he asked, 
hugely pleased with the idea. “Spend the night with me, 
and let Ellen show you what real Sunday morning fish 
cakes are.” His eyes brimmed with slow humor at a 
thought that came to him. “I’ve got a beautiful new pair 
of silk pajamas . . . pink and white stripes . . . from 
Jane Challoner. How about it, Julie?” 

“I’d love it, Uncle David,” was the surprising answer. 

... Of course, she didn’t know . . . Michael thought 
desperately of that one spare room of Uncle David’s . . . 
The old four-poster . . . He must get them both out 
of this—for Julie’s sake—for his— 

“I’ve got to get back to the farm to-night, Uncle David,” 
he said, looking quietly into the old man’s face. He hated 
to see the disappointment clouding those gray eyes so like 
his father’s. He felt a sudden bitter shame as he stood 
there before this fine, simple old man, that all he so took 
for granted—that should have been—he had turned into a 
mockery. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. —Sorry?—he could 
have cried aloud how sorry—for everything. He only 
said quickly: “There’s no reason Julie should have to 
come, too. Julie’d love the old square room with the blue- 
tiled fireplace.” 

She was looking at him. Michael knew that she was. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


252 

But she had not spoken. He felt he must. He turned 
and his eyes met hers. “I’ll bring a hat, in the morning, 
for church,” he said, as though it were only an amusing 
incident. 

A strange look came into Julie’s face, as if a shadow 
swept it. “I forgot the hat, Michael,” she said. And 
then, impulsively, to David Cochrane: “Will you have 
a lone wife?” 

“Try me!” was the heartening answer. 

There was nothing left for Michael but to get away as 
quickly as he could. 

They went with him to the door. David Cochrane 
held out his hand. Michael took it. “Good-night, sir,” 
he said; “it’s been a grand party.” 

Then he turned to Julie, standing beside them. What, 
beneath the innocent old eyes of Uncle David, was there 
to do, else? He put his hand lightly upon her shoulder 
and before she knew what he meant to do he had leaned 
and kissed her: “Good-night, Julie,” he said. And, open¬ 
ing the door, no one knew that he was shaking like a 
foolish boy . . . Julie had not said a word. Did she mind 
so terribly? he wondered, as he went down the path to 
the car. 

The moon rode high. The night was as light as day. 
As he started to put his foot on the running-board, he 
chanced to look down. The front tire was flat. . . . He 
swore softly, remembering that the spare tire was at the 
shop, having the tube mended. —Well—that was that! 
He couldn’t go back. He turned sharply away and walked 
off down the lane . . . out on to the moonlit road wind¬ 
ing into the town. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 53 


8 

They had gone to get some milk and crackers, Julie 
and Uncle David, the bobtailed cat and Biddy the spaniel. 

Coming back into the hall, David Cochrane stopped 
before a chair where were carefully laid his coat with a 
cape and his cap. He sent Julie a whimsical look. “I al¬ 
ways go out for a breather with Biddy and The Tortoise,” 
he confided; “will you toast your toes by the fire till I 
come back?” 

Julie smiled slowly up into his eyes. “I like breathers 
myself, Uncle David . . .” 

The old man laughed with delight; and, like two con¬ 
spirators, they helped each the other into a coat. 

“You hardy women . . . with your imprudent hatless 
heads— And it’s a lovely head, my dear.” The old, 
happy eyes twinkled into hers as he put on his cap and 
opened the door. 

There before them, just where they had left it, she and 
Michael, was the big roadster, lonely under the moon! 
What could it mean? 

“The front tire’s quite flat, Julie,” observed Uncle David. 
“Just like the silly fellar, to go walkin’ off . . . and say 
nothing!” . . . (Was it? Julie wondered miserably.) 
“What, d’ye s’pose, took him in such a rush to the farm 
to-night?” 

Wildly, in her mind, Julie ran the gamut of possibilities 
that would serve— She knew, without knowing the 
reason, that Michael had not wanted to stay ... “A calv¬ 
ing, perhaps,” she got out; “it does happen, you know.” 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


254 

She heard a low chuckle from David Cochrane. It had 
served. 

“I love that boy,” the old man said suddenly. And be¬ 
fore she knew it her words had flown to meet his: “So 
do I . . ” 

A cold wind had sprung up. It swooped down across 
the chimneys, bringing the sharp pungency of wood smoke 
blowing about them. They walked along the lane to the 
gate. There they turned. The bobtailed cat hopped out 
of a shadow and stalked on before them. The house shone 
white in the moonlight, dwarfed by the dark hemlocks 
behind. Far away, across the fields beyond the road, a 
train whistled. The sound died away and there was only 
the swish of the wind in the big trees. 

“Nice, isn’t it, Julie,” came the companionable words. 

“Terribly . . .” she answered. . . . Why had Michael 
gone off like that? Why had he kissed her! 

She had shut the bedroom door behind her. She stood 
with her back pressed against it, looking into the room. 
. . . She knew, now, why Michael had gone—why he 
had let nothing stop him . . . This old square room, look¬ 
ing out over the moonlit fields, with the fire burning cheer¬ 
fully in its blue-and-white tiled fireplace, its huge old field 
bed with its chintz-covered canopy . . . was the only bed¬ 
room but David Cochrane’s own. He had just told her 
so. . . . 

When Uncle David had asked them to stay for the 
night, out of a desperate longing to get away from Windy- 
hill—from Toby—she had answered. And when she saw 
Michael demur, she had still gone on with her curious 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


255 

stubborn determination to stay . . . How could she have 
known— ? 

“Oh! How stupid!” she whispered, staring wide-eyed 
before her, and she felt the slow blood mounting in her 
face. With it rose a tide of anger, brief and sharp. “I 
can’t think of everything I say and do,” she flared. 

Then dropping her burning face in her hands, “I don’t 
know what I am doing, any more,” she was saying brok¬ 
enly,—“I love him so.” . . . 


Chapter Eleven 


i 

A HIGH wind, slashed with rain, and bitterly cold, 
tore at the bare lilac bushes by the corner of the 
woodshed, and swooped, with a mournful sound, 
down the big chimney. Pat English leaned his shoulder 
against the frame of the window and stared in brooding 
abstraction up into the pines above the orchard. Finding 
in the tossing pine boughs no solution to his moody 
thoughts, he turned with impatience and a grunt of 
frustration and got out a cigarette. He lighted it, let 
his eyes rest for an unseeing moment on the floor at his 
feet, then abruptly moved over to a cloth-covered form 
on a stand. He took off the cloth and stood there look¬ 
ing at the head before him. 

“It’s incredible— But it’s true!” he said after a minute. 
Slowly, unbelieving, the words dropped into the silence 
of the room. And still he gazed on the face before him 
wrought in clay. Then he lifted his dark head. “Good 
God!” he said somberly, “I love her!” 

256 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 57 

Once more his eyes were drawn back to the work of 
his hands. It was good,—extraordinarily good. The ar¬ 
tist in him recognized that. But the man in him cared 
nothing at all for the two weeks’ work, nearly perfected: 
the smile he had come this long way to catch was not 
there,—instead, this preposterous thing had happened. 

The front door opened and shut. He swung sharply 
about, listening to footsteps crossing the hall. 

“Hello, Cats’-eyes!” She stood there in the doorway— 
unaware—Julie! 

“. . . Hello, Linnet,” he said soberly, while the blood 
beat and thundered in his ears. 

She came in, and her eyes went past him to the cold 
hearth. “Pat—oh, Pat—” she chided whimsically, “the 
fire’s out. Run, like a good boy, for some wood.” She 
took off the black beret she wore and unwound her 
muffler. “I’ll be looking at myself, face to face ... to 
see—” she laughed ruefully,—“well, just to see—” 

She was standing before the clay when he came back 
from the shed with an armful of logs. She turned, and 
Pat saw a curious expression on her face . . . half ques¬ 
tioning— 

“There isn’t any smile there . . . after all, Pat . . .” 

He dumped the logs on the hearth and went down on 
his knees to start the fire. “No,” he said from there at 
last. 

“I thought—” she began; but he interrupted her. 

“So did I— But it isn’t there any more, Linnet.” He 
twisted swiftly to look up at her. “Why?” he whipped 
out. 

He saw the color creep up into her cheeks, and with 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


258 

it felt a fury of impotency rise within him. He got to 
his feet and faced her. 

“You’re unhappy!” he said tensely. 

“No, Pat.” With head up she lied bravely to him. 
He paid not the slightest heed. From his great height 
he stared down at her in somber disregard of any denial. 

“I might not have noticed, once,” he said. “Now—I 
do. It’s hell to see you unhappy, Linnet.” 

“Stop, Pat!” Her voice was low, but it was impera¬ 
tive . . . 

For all he noticed them, her words might have been 
the wind that tossed the trees, unheeded, on yonder hill. 

“No,” he said roughly. “I don’t care for honor—or 
Mike—or anything on God’s earth but you, Linnet!” 

“Are you mad, Pat?” asked Julie quietly. 

“Yes—” he answered,—“after all these years—mad— 
for you!” And with the stark words still ringing through 
the room, he came swiftly to stand close before Julie and 
the clay. Anger, smouldering tawnily in his eyes, burst 
into sudden flame as he glared fiercely at Julie. “Your 
smile has gone. ... I don’t want your face that way—” 
the pent-up fury in his voice made the words cruel. “Not 
as Michael has made it!” He reached out quickly, before 
Julie could stop him, and clutching the head of clay 
dragged it off the stand and hurled it face down upon 
the hearth. 

Mute with horror, Julie watched him. 

He stared for a minute, as though dazed, at the mass 
of clay at his feet. Then, wheeling on Julie, cried out 
harshly: “Linnet—Linnet! What have I done?” 

She came and stood quite close to him and laid a hand 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


259 

very gently against his breast. “It’s I, Pat,” she said, and 
she strove pitifully with her voice that it might be steady. 
“What do I do ... to make things so unhappy? We 
had something once, Pat . . . that was fine and simple 
and big— I’ve killed . . . that . . . too—” 

The unconscious appeal stirred the manhood in Pat 
English. Looking into her face, very slowly his big hand 
closed over hers upon his chest, and drew it down. 

“I ought to be shot, Linnet . . .” he said unsteadily. 

A low sound broke in upon the quiet that followed Pat’s 
words. He swung slowly about, still holding Julie’s hand. 
Then, as slowly, let it drop. . . . 

There, in the narrow doorway, stood Michael. 

“Hello,” he said queerly. “I wonder . . . if I . . . could 
telephone . . .” 

Pat English gazed at the big figure as though it were a 
ghost. 

But Julie, with a little stifled cry, went past him, straight 
to Michael. 

“What’s wrong, Mike?” she asked, her eyes fastened 
upon him. 

“Nothing . . .” he said coolly, for all that his face was 
set and ghastly white. He did not move away from the 
frame of the door where he leaned. “Just a bit of a 
mix-up with Jane’s colt . . . Smashed the breaking cart 
. . . and—” 

“Get some whiskey, Pat!” Julie said sharply. 

“I’m all right . . .” Michael spoke jerkily, looking past 
them both. “I’ll just call up the vet . . .” Still he did 
not move. 

“You’re hurt, Michael!” Julie’s voice was insistent. 


26 o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“No—” he said again. 

But Pat knew suddenly why Michael did not go to the 
telephone. He did not trust himself away from the sup¬ 
porting frame of the door. For a brief moment, against 
his will he found his eyes drawn to Michael’s,—held there 
by a mute and agonized question that he did not under- 
stand and could not answer. Then Michael had turned 
and lurched out into the hall . . . 

Julie gave a low cry as Michael spun round and pitched 
forward on to the floor. And Pat English knew in that 
moment that it was not lack of loving that had broken her. 


2 

His arm bent across his chest, bandaged tightly about 
his chest and shoulder, three cracked ribs strapped up and 
his free wrist badly sprained and in a splint (crashing to 
the floor with a broken collar bone had not materially 
helped matters), Michael walked slowly up and down his 
room at Windyhill. 

He should have been in bed— But it didn’t really mat¬ 
ter very much. A certain picture was burned into his 
brain with torturous clarity of detail: A great tousled¬ 
headed, furious man hurling down upon the hearth a 
thing of clay ... the harsh words that followed: “I 
don’t want your face that way ... as Michael has made 
it—” Then that man staring, stupefied—as he, too, had, 
in the doorway, sick and stunned—upon the ruined mass 
of clay at his feet ... to burst out, horrified—appalled 
at his action: “Linnet, Linnet! What have I done?” 


• • i 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


261 


In his mind, as he turned restlessly, walking again past 
his bed, his books, the table with the lamp, to the fire¬ 
place—he saw Julie—his wife, go up and lay her hand 
on that other man’s breast . . . speaking brokenly, piti¬ 
fully— Julie! pitiful and broken-voiced . . . “What do 
I do to make things so unhappy?” . . . and the man’s 
unsteady answer: “I ought to be shot, Linnet!” . . . 

“God!” He winced with pain as he threw up his head— 
Well—it had come . . . that was all . . . 


3 

The last thing was crammed into the battered valise. 
There in the narrow bedroom the big ungainly man knelt 
and pulled the straps, one then the other, to the last 
hole he could squeeze them. Then he got to his feet, 
and without a look about him, grasped the handle and 
dragged the heavy bag out into the room beyond, where 
he dumped it with a thud that resounded through the 
old house. Ruffling his hair into a dark mane, Pat Eng¬ 
lish stared for a moment at the stand where a lump of 
clay was so carefully covered with a bit of orange cloth. 
Then, walking up to it, he reached a long arm and 
ruthlessly pulled away the cloth. Face to face with dis¬ 
aster—for his figure of Annunciation—he laughed aloud. 
A short, harsh laugh of derision—of defiance to the 
world and what it might do to him . . . How Larry 
French and Phil Terrance would howl with laughter at 
his coming back to that funny old studio of theirs in 
Paris—with nothing to show, but this! 


262 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


“Let them—! Let them laugh!” he burst out savagely. 
(They would not have laughed had they seen his eyes 
now ... in this room where he had thrown the work 
of two weeks upon the bricks at Julie’s feet . . . where 
he had raved for some mad moments over a lost smile— 
to another man’s wife!) 

He turned his eyes suddenly away, as though he could 
not longer bear to look upon the distorted lump of clay 
before him . . . “Linnet—” he whispered. He swal¬ 
lowed hard, then flung fiercely about and stalked into the 
kitchen . . . 

Half an hour later, leaving all washed and swept be¬ 
hind him, the ice chest doors swinging wide to an empty, 
scoured interior, he came out and shut the door. 

Going over again to the ruined model of Julie’s head, he 
picked up the bit of orange cloth he had flung upon the 
floor, and, taking down the clay, wrapped it about and 
mechanically stowed it with his other materials, his model¬ 
ling implements and stand, in a curious square box that 
yawned upon the hearth. 

. . . That was Hone. Moving the box to stand be¬ 
side the old valise, he noticed a blotch on the bricks. 
He hadn’t got the oily clay all up! He fetched a cloth 
and went at it. And then he set to work deliberately to 
obliterate all traces of habitation . . . burned matches, 
heaps of cigarette ends— Good Lord! How many, that 
night, had he smoked? He straightened the things in the 
room and swept up the hearth. With infinite care for the 
splendid bank of ashes, he removed each last thing that 
had been thrown there. The fire had burned out. He 
saw that logs were there for those who came after him. . . . 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


263 

A wan light was stealing in at the windows. He went 
over and looked out. He could see the pines on the hill 
against a lighter sky. He opened the window and leaned 
forth. 

A fresh wind blew in his face, ruffling his hair, and 
bringing to him the good earthy smell of the wet orchard. 
The rain had stopped ... Up there, over the hill, Julie 
slept, in Michael’s house . . . perhaps in Michael’s arms. 
He didn’t know ... Was she unhappy? . . . Did Mi¬ 
chael love her as he loved her? Something was wrong. 
Oh, God—it shouldn’t have been—for Linnet! . . . What 
was it she had said, as she stood there before him with the 
clay lying on the hearth at their feet? He tried to re¬ 
member her words . . . “We had something once that 
was—fine and simple” (that was it) “. . . I’ve killed that, 
too” . . . What had she meant? Why had this all 
happened? . . . Suddenly, in the depths of the lilac 
bush by the woodshed, a bird began to sing—clear and 
hopeful. A chickadee! “Plucky little beggar!” Pat 
screwed about; but it was not light enough yet to really 
make out the tiny feathered body. 

Slowly then he pulled back into the room and shut 
the window . . . He must get on . . . That letter to 
Linnet. Old Jim, in the station Ford, would be coming 
for him shortly before six— The milk train went at 6.12. 
He remembered it well. . . . When the sun got up over 
the hill and the brook—he would be gone ... It was bet¬ 
ter so. What else was there? 

He went to the old desk in the corner, and switching 
on the little pewter lamp, got out some paper and took 
up a pen. But with his hand lying inert on the paper 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


264 

he dropped his chin to his other fist, propped there with 
his elbow resting beside the blank white sheet, and shut 
his eyes. . . . What could he say? —He was going: 
that was all. With a sharp sigh, his head came up. He 
began to write: 

I am going away, Linnet. It will take a bigger man 
than I—to do your head. 

Forget that I ever came back, and forgive what you 
can, Linnet— Only be happy! 

Pat. 

He folded the short letter without reading what he had 
written, and sealed it in an envelope. —“Mrs. Michael 
Cochrane”— For the first time, he wrote that long cloak 
for Linnet . . . Linnet, with her glory of flaming hair, 
her gay, alluring eyes and thin, lovely face . . . Mike’s 
wife. “Make her happy, God!” he said, and his voice 
sounded harsh and unused. 

He snapped off the light and heard the sound of a 
car coming along the lane. —It was over. . . . 

He got to his feet and looked about the old familiar 
room. The room he loved more than any other in the 
world. —It was as he had found it—with just one more 
human incident added to the ghostly string stretching 
back and back . . . Someone knocked on the door. 
“Come!” he called out sharply. 

He watched the door swing wide. Old Jim stood 
framed there, blinking into the dim hall. Behind him, 
dawn streaked the sky above the hill. 

He slipped the letter into his pocket. “Come and help 
me, Jimmy,” he said. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


265 


4 

That afternoon (Saturday having inevitably come round) 
found Julie and young Martin riding through the lane by 
the river. It was a date of a week’s standing. 

Jogging along the muddy ruts under the hemlocks, Solo¬ 
mon reached at his bit, and even rose to a sly nip at the 
hogged mane of Tags: a lean blue roan with a ratted 
tail,—the sole Sheridan pony. There came, suddenly, a 
raucous long-drawn crow, the drumming whirr of a cock 
pheasant getting up and away. An emancipated Tess 
poked her head forth from a tangle of blueberry bushes. 
Her tongue hung out; one floppy ear was caught back at 
a rakish angle. Martin gave a shout of laughter. “Rats— 
Rats— After ’em, Tess!” The small black head was 
withdrawn and a frantic rustling ensued among the wet 
bushes at the roadside. Sobering, the boy twisted side¬ 
ways in his saddle to look at Julie. 

“Why did Mr. English have to go, on a Saturday?” he 
asked— “Just when he was goin’ to ride with us, and 
had a bet about stayin’ on The Djinn . . . ? Must ’a been 
in an awful hurry! ... I s’pose your head was finished, 
anyway, Julie, or he wouldn’t have . . .” 

“Yes,” said Julie soberly. “It was . . .” She thought 
of that ‘head’ as she had last seen it, face down on the 
bricks of the hearth. She thought of the brief note, in 
Pat’s scrawling hand, brought to her at breakfast time that 
morning by old Tim . . . 

“He was sorry to have to go, Marty,” she explained 
simply. “But he did really have to, I think, old man.” 


266 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


. I suppose so,” observed Martin cheerfully . . . 
“Let’s go over the bridge into the ten-acre field, and round 
by Todd’s farm.” And as they clattered over the boards 
and into the squelching field: “Tell me about Mrs. 
Challoner’s colt, and Mike . . . Mike’s often broken 
colts before. Ma said he had . . . How did it happen? 
Do you know?” 

“The colt ran away,” said Julie, turning to meet a pair 
of serious clear eyes . . . “Michael never says much about 
things that happen to him . . .” 

“No.” Martin spoke soberly. “Brave men don’t.” 
Julie wondered, with a stab of commiseration, if women 
who said nothing could be included in that category . . . 

“Toby saw the stable boy at the Challoners’. He was 
there,” she went on, “when it happened. The colt, run¬ 
ning blind, crashed into a corner of the paddock hurdles 
. . . tipped over the breaking cart and threw Mike out. 
Andy told Toby that Mike hung on to the reins and 
was dragged a good way before the colt stopped—this time, 
bang up against a shed.” 

“Gosh! It must ’a hurt!” burst out a wide-eyed Martin. 

“Yes.” Julie thought of the man standing grim and 
white-faced in the doorway . . . turning without a word 
to pitch headlong on to the floor . . . 

“Aren’t you terrible proud of him, Julie?” 

“Yes—” she swallowed hard, and somehow smiled into 
the boy’s expectant face,—“‘terrible’!” 

Keeping to the edge of the field, they climbed the slope 
at the farther side. At the top of the little hill they pulled 
up their ponies. There below them was Todd’s farm, 
with its red house and barns. Its two big elms. A dog was 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


267 

barking. A wisp of smoke rose from one squat chimney. 
Against the clear sky to the west a dim blue mountain 
loomed: beautiful and remote. . . . Suddenly Martin was 
speaking. Julie came back from the far-off mountain. 

“. . . Don’t you think so? . . . How about asking Mrs. 
Todd if she has any?” He cocked a hopeful eye at Julie. 

“Any what, old fellar?” she said, smiling involuntarily at 
the blank look on Martin’s ingenuous rosy face. 

“Maple sugar . . . ! Mike adores it, Julie . . .” 

“And you don’t . . .” Julie added humorously. 

Martin sent back an engaging grin, and they rode on 
down through the wide cedar pasture to the farm below. 


5 

Julie had thought, when she came in to tea, that Michael 
was, of course, in his room. But sitting there by the tea 
things in the library, with the dogs, just as she had come 
in from riding, she had suddenly heard voices coming 
from Michael’s den: Toby’s, raised in protest; then a 
deeper voice, that could only belong to Michael, low and 
insistent. . . . She could not hear the words, and natu¬ 
rally did not want to,—but why was Michael so utterly 
disregarding everything that Dr. Vincent had told him 
to do? ... reckless of all sensible ways of going, with 
as many cracked and broken bones as that miserable colt 
of Jane’s had given him . . . How hopelessly difficult it 
all was—to sit by, forced to watch, in silence, things 
going forward that could so wring your heart. All through 
a fog of misunderstanding . . . that grew into a sort of 


268 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


cold formality between her and Michael. If only she 
could be free of this thing that held her fast! This terrify¬ 
ing love for a man who— Oh— She turned restlessly 
away from staring out to the paling east above the dark 
trees on the crown of the hill . . . and there on the 
table across the hearth stood the old copper jar she 
loved, filled with fresh yellow jonquils! They had 
certainly not been there at lunch time! How could 
she have helped noticing them when she came in? That 
she should not have done so was the measure of her misery. 
It brought with it now a tiny jab of fear . . . She got up, 
without having touched any tea, and going slowly over to 
the low table where they were, stood looking down at the 
golden heads of the jonquils. Suddenly, with a choky 
feeling in her throat, she leaned and buried her face in their 
cool, spring fragrance . . . Who could have put them 
there? Certainly not Sam or Hannah. Poor darlings, 
they were both incapable of getting flowers into a vase 
without having them look as stiff as a bunch in the win¬ 
dow of a country florist’s shop . . . Slowly she shook 
her head. It was just a part of the misty, unreal world 
she was struggling with now. With an aching desire 
for action that would brush all this shadowy world aside 
. . . to let go for a moment and forget . . . her thoughts 
turned instinctively to music. Without waiting a further 
moment, she went to the piano and sat down before it. 

She had played first a fragment of Liszt—her eyes dream¬ 
ing and lost in the beauty of the music . . . And then, 
with no conscious volition, her fingers had wandered into 
Massenet’s “Manon”, Without a thought, she had begun 
to sing that poignant song of a man’s love . . . Beautiful 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


269 

and sorrowful and thrilling, her voice filled the flrelit room 
. . . fulfilling her need to forget . . . freeing the cry of 
her own heart, in the words of that other lover . . . 
“Manon—” the lovely heartbreaking final note, transcend¬ 
ing all love and grief, held for a moment . . . grew faint, 
and died away. In absolute silence, Michael was standing 
in the doorway. 

Julie saw him. Her heart beat thickly. There was a 
strange look upon his face, as though for a second of time 
she had caught him unaware . . . when he had forgotten 
to hold on . . . 

He came into the room; and, without a word to Julie, 
went and stood by the window, looking up to the woods 
against the sky. Julie did not speak, either. She did 
not even move . . . except to follow with her eyes the 
big one-armed figure, his coat buttoned clumsily over 
the bandages beneath. He looked very tall, standing there 
beyond the reach of the firelight, dark against the last 
reflection of the dying sunset caught in the sky over the 
hill. 

... “I love ‘Manon’.” He spoke quietly, impersonally, 
without using her name. “You sing it supremely well.” 

“I hope it didn’t break up some confab of yours and 
Toby’s,” she said lightly, that curious cold perverseness 
taking hold of her. 

“No,” answered Michael, almost crisply. “Toby’s gone 
over to the Challoners’—about the colt. Jane and Josh 
are back.” 

There was a pause, as he still stood there by the win¬ 
dow, silhouetted against the twilit world outside. —If 
only she could go over to him . . . stand close to him, as 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


270 

her heart cried out to do, and ask him how he really 
was! But she could not. She could not do one natural 
thing . . . say one simple word. The clutch of absurd 
restrictions held her. . . . She must break free and get 
out ... if only for a single moment, before something 
broke in her from the strain. Her eyes leaving Michael 
fell suddenly on the jonquils in their copper jar. In a 
little rush of appreciation for the soft yellow glow of 
them in the light from the fire, words came, spontaneous 
and unpremeditated. 

“Did you put the jonquils there in that old copper jar, 
Michael? They are too lovely.” Simple and na'ive, the 
words broke the hush that had fallen. 

“Yes.” It was a mere answer: no more. Then, so 
suddenly, so unforeseen that Julie felt a sharp spasm of 
fear, Michael wheeled about to face her. Sweeping aside 
the silence, her effort toward friendliness, as though they 
had not been, he was speaking in a tense voice, almost 
harshly. 

“I could not help seeing, Julie . . .” He paused, as 
though finding it very hard to go on— 

“Seeing what, Michael?” The words sprang, in self- 
defense, from Julie’s bewilderment. 

“My God!” he whipped out, “is there no end?” 

Mutely for a moment she waited. Then: “You will 
have to explain, Michael,” she said, forcing her voice 
to steadiness. She had never seen him like this. It 
stirred in her a curious anger, that died as she met his 
eyes, and slid off into pity. 

“I saw Pat English hurl your head face down upon 
the hearth— I heard him say— Oh, Julie!” he broke 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


271 

out, “if I’ve hurt you so much, why don’t you do some¬ 
thing about it? . . . Or is it for me—? Be fair to me, at 
least, and tell me. I would never hold you—” He had 
left the window and was coming slowly to her where she 
sat. Julie knew a moment of breathless fear ... It was 
the end of everything . . . 

He was standing close to the piano. In the half-dusk 
his figure loomed above her, cut out against the firelight 
behind him. Julie could not clearly see his face . . . only 
that dark outline, hiding—how much of physical pain? 
what depths of misunderstanding? ... In a sudden and 
overwhelming surge of pity for his blindness, all other 
emotions were for the moment swept aside. “What is it, 
Michael?” she said unsteadily. 

“You love him—don’t you, Julie? ... You and Pat 
. . . love each other. . . .” In her own misery Julie missed 
the deeper note of misery behind the man’s almost harshly 
spoken words . . . “He needn’t have gone away . . .” 
Michael added queerly. 

“Pat loves me—” 

“And you—?” 

“No— No—” she whispered, wide-eyed. She shook 
her head, “No—” she said again desperately. 

Michael drew in his breath sharply and swung away. 

From before the fire, he turned once more to face her, 
and spoke with somber quietness. She caught the brood¬ 
ing look that smouldered in his eyes. “Forgive me, will 
you, Julie?” he said, looking at her across the dusky space 
between. She shivered, as though with deadly cold. “Of 
course,” she answered, in the same formal, subdued voice 
he had used. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


272 

“I simply wanted to remind you—” he went on evenly, 
“of a certain pact of ours— You do remember it, don’t 
you?” 

. . . God, how cruel he could be! . . . “Yes, I remember 
it, Michael,” she said. 

“Well—that’s all that matters, really. Let’s have some 
tea. I see you haven’t had any yet. Neither have I.” 

How much longer could this terrible game go on? 
Julie wondered hopelessly . . . while with apparent casual¬ 
ness she poured out a cup of tea for Michael and then for 
herself . . . hearing, even, as though some other voice 
spoke from far away, her own offhand words— “Marty 
insisted that you loved maple sugar and must have some. 
So we rode around by Todd’s farm and he wheedled some 
out of the good woman’s larder ...” 

Michael gave a short laugh and reached for a cigarette. 
“Have one?” he asked. 

Taking it from him, her hand for a second touched his, 
and found it icy cold. . . . He ought to be in bed, she 
thought miserably, as she leaned over for the light he held 
for her. —If she only had the right—! 

“Does your shoulder hurt a lot, Michael?” she asked, 
suddenly raising her eyes to his face. 

He looked at her for a quiet moment. “Not a bit!” he 
answered. 


Chapter Twelve 


i 

E ASTER vacation was on foot. Roving at large, 
Micky and Martin had come upon Julie and Pip at 
work on the bed of bulbs under the dining room 
window at Windyhill—taking off the last of the winter 
covering. Closing one eye in a slow wink at his amused 
side partner, Pip had remarked that they were just in the 
nick of time. “Were off for some milk and cookies . . . 
a date with Hannah and the canary,” he had added slyly, 
obviously not including the two newcomers. “If you 
fellars take on this stuff—perhaps—” 

Left to their own devices, in the hopes held forth by 
their elder brother of possible cookies to come, the two 
boys had worked in a leisurely fashion that lagged lamen¬ 
tably behind the brisk conversion that went forward be¬ 
tween them and would have sounded to a listener, had 
there been one, absurdly like two good-natured starlings 

273 


/ 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 74 

chattering over a super-find of slugs. Out of it, presently, 
Micky had burst into a song: 

“On the first day of April, my true love sent to me 

A-a partri-idge in a pear tree . . 

he chirruped. 

“Of Christmas, you nut!” protested Martin. 

“April fool! —Don’t you s’pose I know it?” was the 
delighted retort. 

“I forgot it was April Fool’s Day,” Martin brought out 
thoughtfully, after a full minute had elapsed . . . “Never 
mind—!” 

“It’s some fool’s day every day,” observed Micky crypti¬ 
cally, and in utter disregard of the other’s obvious warning 
to look out for himself on that particular one. 

“Oh, dry up!” Martin twisted about on a pair of muddy 
knees and gave a fat gurgle. “Go on with the ‘second day’ 

. . . the two turtle doves . . . four calling birds—however 
it does go. It’s awful silly; but I like it.” . . . 

The date with Hannah having come to a satisfactory end¬ 
ing, Pip bearing a tray triumphantly aloft, and Julie follow¬ 
ing, with an eager Tess in tow, the two emerged into the 
dining room, in time for Micky’s burst of song, and what 
followed of repartee. 

Pip came to a stop, and listened. Then, grinning over 
his shoulder at Julie, he deposited the tray swiftly on the 
sideboard and leaned out of the window just above the 
pair of makeshift gardeners. 

“Sing on, MacDuff,” he drawled; “but first, hand up that 
partridge— 

An answer in the form of a wad of wet leaves flew past 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 75 

his shoulder and plopped on to the rug. Pip withdrew, 
and down came the window. He turned to Julie with a 
disarming chuckle. “Sorry!” he said, and retrieving the 
bit of garden covering, he slid the window up for just long 
enough to fling forth the damp token of young Micky’s 
regard. It caught the latter on the tip of the ear. Then: 
“Why don’t we eat right here, Julie?” he suggested wick¬ 
edly, standing with arms akimbo as he surveyed the plate 
of cookies and the old hound pitcher. But suddenly the 
teasing light died out of his face. His eyes became dream¬ 
ing and happy. Stretching forth a hand, he caressed, with 
gentle fingers, the shining glaze of the hound’s back. 
Julie nodded slowly as he turned to her, remembering 
queerly a happy impromptu supper with Michael . . . and 
a conversation. “Yes, that’s what it does to me, too, 
Pip . . . ” 

“You’re even better than Ma, about guessing what some¬ 
one’s goin’ to say . . . It isn’t guessing, really—” his eyes 
rested in naive approval on Julie’s face. “You’re terribly 
nice,” he said simply. “I like you—enormously.” (Pip had 
a most effective way of saying nice things. It was so un¬ 
self-conscious and direct.) 

“Do you, Pip?” Julie was smiling. Pip took up a 
cookie and absently bit into it. “Yes, I do—” He lifted 
his eyebrows in comical assurance. “I think Mike’s damn 
lucky,” he observed with emphasis. 

Someone banged on the window. “Hey there!” Pip, 
quite unperturbed, knowing full well who banged, and 
why, went on eating his cookie. He reached over and 
poured out a glass of milk; and, turning his back to the 
window, leaned an elbow on the corner of the sideboard 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


276 

and looked soberly at Julie. “Wait a minute,” he said. 
“You don’t have to bother about ’em, yet. . . . I’m goin’ 
to do a rotten thing, perhaps,” he went on seriously, “and 
tell you something, for what’s it’s worth. I don’t believe 
you know it. You couldn’t, really—or it wouldn’t be 
goin’ on.” 

Something clutched at Julie’s heart, and for a minute as 
she faced an unsmiling Pip everything seemed to stop. 

“What are you driving at, Pip?” Her words fell with 
a surprising and calm restraint, that for a moment seemed 
to damp Pip’s ardor . . . But only for a moment. 

“Mike’s been schoolin’ again,” he said impetuously. 
“Toby got the doctor to tell him he was an ass (that’s the 
way Toby put it), and there was a bit of a row between 
’em— Mike and Toby. That’s all the good it did!” He 
turned, with the words, to put down his untouched glass of 
milk. And Julie found herself noticing that one arm of 
the old silver candlestick, beyond, was badly bent. Why 
should she notice such things, when everything was smash¬ 
ing around her—in her—? she thought. And then: What, 
that was convincing, could she answer to this serious, boy’s 
face before her? —What else, but that which was a lie? 

. . . How could she say that she knew—? How could 
she, without shaking Pip’s faith in Michael ... in mar¬ 
riage, tell him the truth: that she did not. . . . Oh, why— 
but that he was fed up and unhappy about it and wanting 
to break loose—was Michael doing this crazy thing? 

“Not all the good, Pip,” she was forcing her voice to 
quietness,—“though it was too bad he and Toby scrapped.” 
She gathered all her forces and went on—“I don’t think 
Michael will do something foolish long. He doesn’t often. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


277 

But everyone likes to do crazy things now and then” . . . 
Her lips quivered into a smile. “Don’t you, Pip?” 

The boy gave a relieved laugh. “You bet!” he agreed. 
“And you did know—all the time; and never tried to butt 
in.” Admiration rang in his voice. “Just waiting for 
him to come to his senses! I call that wonderful. Men 
do so hate to be stopped.” 

“What’s all this, Pip?” A voice from the doorway 
brought Julie about. It was Michael. 

His eyes seeking those of his uncle in swift eagerness to 
answer, Pip failed to see the color flood up into Julie’s face. 
He plunged right into his confession. 

“I just did a rotten thing, Mike,” he said. “I’d like to tell 
you about it. 

“I was in a funk over your fooling round with that 
crazy colt again, after getting so smashed up . . . I asked 
Julie if she knew ...” his face broke into a sudden smile. 
“She did ... all the time, Mike—and didn’t let a peep out 
of her. . . . And all she said about it just now was that 
everyone had to have a fling once in a while. I think it’s 
damn game to look at it that way ... You don’t think 
I squealed on you, do you, Mike?” he finished ingenuously. 

Michael shook his head in answer; and Pip bent over 
suddenly to catch the cocker up into his arms. He did 
not see the curious mute expression on Michael’s face, nor 
the question in his eyes as he looked beyond to Julie, who 
had gone to the sideboard behind Pip, and was standing 
with her arm resting close beside the old hound pitcher. 
Nor could he tell that at the question, “Did you know, 
Julie?” coming queerly from Michael, the girl behind him 
moved her head faintly in silent negation. His face was 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


278 

lowered against the puppy’s soft head. He was aware of 
nothing. “Didn’t I tell you, Mike?” he offered in happy 
reassurance, his lips against Tess’s floppy ear. 

“Where’s the hound pitcher off to?” asked Michael, so 
abruptly that Pip lifted his head in quick surprise. 

“To the garden,” he answered. 

“No more tales out of school, Pippin!” was Michael’s 
sole comment. And turning away, he made for his den. 

Pip swung round to look at Julie. His face wore a 
comical expression. “Now d’ye think he was put out—or 
don’t you? ... You can’t always tell, with Mike.” 

“No,” said Julie, her eyes on the empty doorway—“you 
can’t.” 

Casting off all care, Pip deposited Tess on the floor and 
went over to the window. He opened it wide, and without 
more ado fetched the plate of cookies and passed it forth 
to the grubby paw that waited. “Milk?” he asked, holding 
the hound pitcher poised over an empty glass . . . 

With extraordinary relief, Julie turned to the thing of 
the moment; grateful beyond belief for just this,—feeding 
three care free boys with cookies and milk, and, with Pip’s 
help, keeping the old pitcher, that had been given to her, 
from coming to an untimely end. 


2 

Michael was on his way home. He had walked over to 
Five Acres corner, to the south of the town, to see Bob 
Gaunt about seed corn and oats. No man in the country 
had better grain and corn for planting than Bob; and no 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


279 

man was a greater talker. It had been late when Michael 
said good-night, on the tail of a contract, and, calling Fanny, 
had crossed a narrow plank over a brook in flood and made 
for Black Horse Hill. 

A strong wind swept across the fields. To the east, along 
the horizon, the sky held a smoky line of haze. Though 
it had been an open winter, with comparatively little snow, 
the frost had hung on in the ground until well into March; 
and only ten days ago had plowing begun. Skirting freshly 
turned ground on the slope behind Gaunt’s red farmhouse, 
Michael sniffed the good smell of the earth. In a fenced 
pasture beside the cart track that climbed the hill, two 
colts trotted off at his approach: the splendid springy trot, 
with heads up and tails streaming, of colts at large. The 
sight brought sharply back to Michael yesterday’s incident 
of Pip’s confession, and the boy’s ingenuous praise of Julie 
for, as he had put it—letting him, Michael, have his fun 
with Jane’s colt . . . 

If only it had been like that, how wonderful! Just as 
Pip had believed: as for one preposterous moment he had: 
clutching at the sense of intimate understanding implied by 
such an act. At the spontaneous words of the question that 
had sprung from his lips, he had seen the painful color 
flame in Julie’s face, as faintly, that Pip might not know, 
she had shaken her head. She had deliberately let Pip 
maintain his sturdy belief in him. Why? And then, sud¬ 
denly, it came to him. She had been trying to keep up 
appearances. She had not wished to let him down before 
Pip ... He felt the hot blood mounting within him. 
“Good God!” he swore miserably; “is it as bad as that?”— 
That Julie should be forced to protect him, by implying a 


28 o 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


lie! He drove his fist deep into his breeches pocket and 
strode on grimly up the hill ... It could not go on! No! 
Then, in swift reversion: If Julie made no move, how could 
he? He couldn’t. Unseeing, oblivious of the early spring 
world of hill and woods, of cedar pasture and brown plow, 
he tramped on . . . by turns, furious with himself, and 
hopelessly at fault as to the future. What hell it was to 
love someone and not— Oh, Julie! He came to the top 
of a hill. Cedar pastures swept down before him to a line 
of brook. There was a hemlock by a narrow foot-bridge, 
and beyond, with its orchard climbing to meet the pines 
on a farther hill, an old weathered house. —How had he 
got there? He must have traveled blind. He’d have to 
pull up a bit . . . He’d had some hot words with Toby 
right down by that hemlock two days ago, over that damn 
colt of Jane’s. Rather, about his wretched cracked ribs. 
Pip, standing first on one foot and then the other, his 
face flaming, had heard it all . . . It was a good thing 
he had to go off to Virginia for a week. He couldn’t 
stand a lot more. 

Michael became suddenly aware that he was biting hard 
on the stem of a perfectly cold pipe. He took it out of 
his mouth and crammed it into his pocket. Then, with a 
savage tweak, pulled the brim of his felt hat low over his 
eyes, and stared down, against the setting sun, at the house 
below . . . 

How could things have got into such an inconceivable 
jam? And where, in God’s name, was it all going to end? 
He did not know how much longer he could stick things 
as they were—and hide—what had to be hidden . . . God, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


281 

how far away they had got from that day, only two months 
ago, when he had, all so innocently—and, as he now saw, 
with so much for which to be blamed—brought Julie home 
to Windyhill! His thoughts went swiftly hack to that 
day of quiet snow when they had been married. —Mar¬ 
ried? He had made of the intent of that austere and 
simple service, a very travesty. As though from the hilltops 
he had cried aloud his mockery. Blindly, with sublime 
self-confidence, he had swept Julie into this disastrous 
thing . . . Standing now on the hilltop, looking down 
on that old peaceful house from which he had taken 
her, he knew how deeply he had wronged her. He 
saw it all—from that winter afternoon when he had 
brought her home as his wife, through each successive 
link forged in the inevitable chain of happenings—until 
this moment. 

. . . What would he not give that he might simply, and 
with honor, obey those words he had so confidently re¬ 
peated . . . Love, honor and cherish Julie! And his love 
for her, because he must crush it down and hide it, had 
turned upon him . . . crept between them to break and 
hurt what had once been kind and fine . . . making him 
lash out roughly and stupidly, so that Julie could say, as on 
that night when they had driven to Uncle David’s:—“Oh, 
Michael, can’t we be friends, even?” —Friends! No! he 
could not be her friend. If only Julie— “I’m tied—tied 
—tied!” he broke out sharply. “What can I say? What 
can I do?” He drew in a hard breath and jerked up his 
head: he was back again just where he had started. Over 
and over and over he had started there—and come back 


282 MICHAEL’S WIFE 

to start desperately again . . . like a wretched squirrel in 
a cage! 

Stirred to action by his outbreak, unconsciously he had 
left the top of the hill and was going down through the 
pasture. He came at length to the foot-bridge over the 
brook. He crossed it, without looking to right or left, and 
turned abruptly for home. 

Stalking along the lane that passed the house, his head 
bent, his eyes upon the ruts that ran before him, he failed 
to see that the sun, now dropped behind the hill, had left 
the faint fresh green of the spring world drenched in a 
mist of translucent gold. He did not see, riding toward 
him from the river road, a girl on a gray pony. 

A dog barked. Michael lifted his head. There before 
him, swinging along, apparently as care free as a bird, was 
Julie. 

Almost simultaneously, she had seen him. She pulled 
up old Solomon and, her only sign of greeting an expect¬ 
ant tilt of her head, waited quietly his approach. And to 
Michael it seemed for one breathless moment, when all 
else faded from him, as the sunset light caught fire and 
flamed in her hair and poured over her in a golden mist, 
that the girl on the gray pony at the foot of a darkling hill 
was transmuted to a figure of pure mystery and beauty. 
For that moment, his love was freed and went out in a 
glad flight. His heart sang. ... He raised his arm in a 
spontaneous gesture, and went forward. He felt and saw 
again with curious poignancy. Like a thirsty man coming 
upon a spring of clear water, he drank the freshness of the 
evening in grateful gulps. His eyes fell suddenly on a 
clump of white violets growing in a hollow by a smooth 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 283 

rock. There came to him some lines of Masefield: 

I thought of the running water where sweet white violets 
grow. 

I said: “I’ll pick them for her, because she loves them so.” 

He leaned swiftly and picked one tiny flower. 

He held the violet out to Julie as he came up beside the 
pony: “Here you are,” he said on a flash of happiness. 
And Julie, taking the little white flower, gave him a brief, 
thrilling smile. 

“I didn’t know they were out yet, Michael,” she said 
almost shyly. And then, with a little gasp, as though 
drawn up out of herself: “Oh, look! Look at the moon, 
Mike, over the crab-apple tree!” 

He swung about, to see the full moon, faintly silver, 
hanging over the old crab-apple tree at the end of the lane. 
And turning back to Julie, felt that an awkwardness had 
fallen between them. 

“I—I’ve been for a wonderful ride . . .” Julie was 
speaking to him, with effort, as might a dutiful child, 
accounting to a grown-up for having slipped away. The 
simple words plunged Michael fathoms deep. Anger, at 
himself, flamed hotly within him. What a stupid fool he 
had been—to blunder into this! . . . That white violet 
. . . Julie did not want white violets, from him. And 
now— In swift reaction came the thought of yesterday 
. . . Julie and Pip there in the dining room— 

“Julie—” he said suddenly, and looking up found her 
eyes fixed upon him. They were clouded by a shadow, 
as though breathlessly she waited—for what? In curious 
bewilderment, he plunged ahead: “Yesterday—there in 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


284 

the dining room— It was decent of you, Julie, not to let 
me down, before Pip. You shouldn’t have bothered to do 
it.” He was getting formal, mixing things up. He knew 
it. And feeling horribly helpless, blundered on, “You 
mustn’t get pushed into lying, to save my skin, you know, 
Julie. You can’t do that.” . . . Oh! what was he saying? 
He saw the difficult color creep up into Julie’s face, and 
took his eyes away. 

“Oh, Michael,” her voice, filled with somber wistfulness, 
sounded in his ears, “what have I done ... to change you 
so?” 

“Nothing!” At her unexpected words, which every bit 
of him cried out to answer with the truth, the restraint he 
put upon himself made the word sound bald and 
harsh. . . . 

And then they were going up the hill: old Solomon 
and he, walking side by side. He was looking straight 
before him, seeing nothing, knowing that he had somehow 
tied a further knot in the rope that bound him hand and 
foot—dragging him away from Julie. 

At the top of the hill, as they plunged into the gloom 
of the woods, he looked up at the girl riding by his side. 
He must break this dreadful silence that had fallen upon 
them, weighing them down: 

“I’ve got to go to Virginia for a week,” he said. “Would 
you want to go, Julie?” 

His amazing words seemed to surprise her not at all. 
She looked at him for a minute before she answered 
quietly, “I think I’ll stay at Windyhill, thank you, Michael.” 
. . . He heard the wind go soughing through the far-off 
tops of the pines. Solomon reached lazily at his bit. Tess 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


285 

came suddenly headlong from a footpath, and, with Fanny 
joining in the chase, made off down the hill toward the 
barn. A clear, golden light sifted through the dark trees. 
The air was cool and fresh. Michael walked on beside the 
gray pony. He did not speak. Neither did Julie. . . . 

They emerged at length from the dusky half light of the 
woods. At their feet, secure in the homely peace of dumb 
animals at evening, lay the barns and farmyard. On the 
farther slope, above a curve of golden river, the old square 
house loomed darkly against a sky of paler gold. There, 
too, was tranquillity, in the slow rising of smoke from a 
big chimney. Tea would be waiting . . . the dogs, and 
Toby . . . 

Michael turned then to look at Julie. —And he had once 
said to her—“Ride or tie.” . . . Her delicious thin face 
and smooth head in profile, she was looking before her, 
down to that old house below: remote from him, thinking 
her own thoughts. . . . His wife! What irony! What 
a grim lie . . . The swift impulse to take her—to tell her 
the truth—rushed over him— To ma\e her love him! 
—Could he do it? 

... “I saw a bluebird this afternoon,” she was saying, 
as though from miles away, dreaming in a world of her 
own. . . . God, no! He had only been dreaming, too 
... Very wildly. 

“The first, I guess, Julie,” he answered. And, out of 
his despair, it was as though he were not faintly interested. 


286 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 

Toby had been going off with Michael to ride the west¬ 
ern bounds, for a mark in question . . . and because he 
had wanted her so terribly, he had sent an apparently 
random suggestion across the luncheon table to Julie . . . 
Was she fed up with farming? They were riding bounds 
. . . there was a bluebird’s nest . . . 

To Toby’s amazed and acute delight Julie had shot a 
mischievous glance at him that made him gasp with heady, 
reckless love of her. ... “I haven’t been farming for 
ages,” she had said, “and I’ve never ridden bounds or seen 
a bluebird’s nest.” Then flashing a look at Michael, who 
was grimly cutting up a chop: “Do you mind, Michael?” 
she had asked. 

Toby had wondered if she were pulling old Mike’s 
leg; but just then he hadn’t really cared . . . Julie was 
coming . . . Alluring and gay, she would be with them, 
riding some of the time side by side with him. 

At her question Michael had looked up suddenly 
as though he, too, could not believe his ears . . . Terribly 
pleased. . . . 

They had had a wonderfully happy ride. Toby had, any¬ 
way, for an hour. They had found the bounds mark, and 
he had got Julie to sing that whale of an old hunting song. 

And then, briefly, out of a clear sky, Mike had said he 
must go to Todd’s farm about a calf or something. . . . 
They had better ride on— It was going to rain. . . . And 
Julie had shut right up and let Mike go off alone. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


287 

Toby had felt that it was all way beyond him. But he 
did know, suddenly, sharply, that he was playing rather 
recklessly with fire—and it must stop—soon. . . . There 
couldn’t be any harm, though, in riding with Julie in a 
brotherly fashion along the lanes and woods beyond 
Windyhill . . . popping over an occasional wall. Just so 
that it should be brotherly! But for weeks he had proved 
that it could. Hadn’t he? 

It had begun to rain, gusty splashes at first, the wind 
strong from the east. Raw . . . the fields gone queerly 
colorless. 

But Julie had laughed, a little reckless spurt of laughter, 
and lifted her face to the cold spring rain. “Smell it, 
Tobias!” she had said. “There’s nothing better. Prod on 
old Tom— Let’s make for home, cross-country.” 

“All plow,” he had reminded her with a grin. 

“Michael’s?” she had questioned. 

“Mm, yes,” he had nodded. And the next minute she 
had swung Solomon about, hopped over two rails at the 
side of the road, and was skirting a wide field, half of it 
dark, freshly turned plow. Old Tom and he had followed. 
. . . Lord, how she could ride! . . . Long gray spears 
of rain blotted out the woods to the left, cutting athwart 
the slope before them. He was beside Julie and they were 
cantering along a squelching cart track close beside a 
stonewall. . . . Never in his life had he been so happy 
as at that moment— A thrilling, intoxicating happiness— 
reckless of anything that might come beyond . . . Just he 
and Julie together . . . the fresh cold rain whipping their 
faces ... He had wanted suddenly with terrible urgency 
to sweep her off that old gray pony, to catch her to him 


288 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


and press her cool rain-washed face to his. . . . God! 
what had he not thought! —His brother’s wife— And 
then, miraculously, as though brought there by his thoughts 
of him, a dark, rain-blurred figure had loomed up at the 
foot-bridge over the brook: Michael, on The Djinn, the rain 
sluicing off his old felt hat, his big shoulders hunched, 
the most curious beaten look upon his face. . . . 

With a little gasp, Julie had pulled up Solomon. And 
then with no particular words about it—certainly no fuss— 
Michael had taken from his saddle a thin white rubber 
slicker and was leaning to help Julie into it. “It got us, 
all right,” he had heard Mike say—as though it were no 
matter to him what got them; and he had seen Julie give 
Mike the strangest look . . . baffled, shot with a flick of 
pain— Why? “I saw you from the farm,” Michael was 
explaining, “and remembered the slicker.” Toby had 
found himself asking futilely about the calf. —“Oh—the 
calf?—I forgot it,” Michael had said, pulling aside his 
pony that Julie might cross the bridge. 

Toby had ridden behind them all the way home. 

He was sitting now, sunk deep in the leather armchair 
by the fire in the library. Julie was at the tea table. She, 
as he, had changed after that drenching ride over the fields 
—Michael’s plow . . . She wore something soft and black 
that clung in delicious folds, and about her throat a string 
of lovely pearls. Her hair, in the light from the lamp on 
the table beyond, shone like a bit of burnished copper. 
—But for some stupid reason Michael had only peeled off, 
in his den or somewhere, the soaking tweed coat in which 
he had got off The Djinn, to put on a sort of jerkin thing 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


289 

of thin leather. He sat between them, crouched over on 
the bench before the fire, with the dogs lying about at his 
feet, and Toby could see that the knees of his breeches 
were dark with rain. Julie was making a third cup of tea 
for him: Toby watched her as, head bent, looking down 
at the tea kettle, she tipped it to pour the hot water over the 
tea ball she twirled beneath it in Michael’s cup. He kept 
his eyes upon her as she lifted hers. How long they were! 
What a lovely face she had! It was thinner, he thought, 
and all the more alluring . . . She was looking at Michael 
as she held out his cup, just a little doubtful, wondering 
and almost wistful. She was going to ask something of 
Michael, he thought. If he could resist her, whatever it 
was, he must be made of ice. 

“I wore your slicker, Michael,” she began, her voice 
tentative and very gentle. “Hot tea is fine, of course, but 
it takes a bit of time to get to one’s knees— Yours are 
soaking wet, Mike.” 

Michael was looking at her queerly, an odd light flicker¬ 
ing in his eyes. Something seemed to happen in his face. 

“Yes, they are,” he said. “Do you mind?” 

At the words spoken shortly, and under Michael’s curious, 
still gaze, Toby saw the faint color rise in Julie’s face; but 
her eyes held steady upon the man before her. 

“Not if you— li\e them that way,” she said slowly. Was 
she smiling? Toby wasn’t sure. 

Michael gave an odd laugh. “I’ll give the tea a chance, 
I guess,” he said, and calmly taking up the cup he had 
set beside him on the bench, twisted round to face the fire. 
Julie only leaned over and stroked a soft, dog nose poked 
on to her knee. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


290 

There fell then upon the room a hush, which for a space 
it seemed no one wished to break. Certainly Toby did not. 
He had had his tea, two cups of it, as only Julie could make 
it: sweet enough, and scalding hot. She never forgot that 
extra lump— He lay back, smoking a cigarette, letting 
his thoughts bring before him again the more vivid bits 
of that afternoon’s ride with Julie . . . He saw her face 
up-tilted to the rain, as she cried happily, “Smell it, 
Tobias!”; her look of quiet mischief, with the words, 
“Prod on, Old Tom” . . . He remembered the lithe twist 
of her body as she swung old Solomon about and lifted him 
over the rails at the lane’s side, and knew again the reckless 
exhilaration of cantering along a squelching cart track 
with the cold splash of rain in his face . . . Unconsciously 
his dreaming eyes focussed for a moment on the actual 
Julie . . . there before him, in a golden blur of light from 
the lamp. She had taken the cocker into her lap, a gloss 
of blackness against the more somber black of her dress. 
The puppy’s head in the crook of her arm, one soft ear 
laid darkly upon it, she was looking down, as with her 
free hand she caressed the little dog’s smooth back ... as 
a woman held something to love it gently—a baby ... a 
a dog, and— 

. . . “Smoke?” He’d forgotten all about old Mike. He 
watched Julie look slowly up, and saw her smile, and shake 
her head. . . . Once more the silence crept about them 
and pushed him back upon his own thoughts . . . What 
was Julie thinking, he wondered. Mike never did forget 
those little things for her . . . How could it come out for 
those two? —Impossible, absurd, incredible affair! They 
were as strangely offhand as—he couldn’t think what. And 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


291 

yet, Mike could remember a slicker—and forget a calf 
. . . Julie could gallop over his plow—and then look at 
Mike the way she had there at the bridge over the brook. 
God!—he gave it up. ... If Julie had married him she 
wouldn’t have spent her days pottering around alone a 
lot of the time! Or her nights alone—in Naomi’s old 
room! . . . But she hadn’t married him. It was not for 
him to say where or how she should spend her days—or 
nights . . . He knew two things. They drove at him 
now sharply. —When Mike got back, he must go. He 
could not stand it. But, before he went, he meant to talk to 
Mike—about the two of them. It just couldn’t lead to 
any happiness for them this way. He would get his an¬ 
swer, he knew. Perhaps as hot as pepper; perhaps crisp, 
restrained and cryptic. You didn’t always know, with 
Mike; but he couldn’t go away and leave things like this, 
without taking a shot first. 

“Are you asleep, Toby?” Julie’s amused question made 
him jump. 

“God, no!” he answered vehemently and abruptly. 

She was smiling at him. “Do you want to do a 
brotherly favor?” 

He was conscious of Mike’s big figure swinging to look 
at Julie. “You bet!” he answered, wondering. 

“Do you remember a thing you played the night you 
came back?” (Why hadn’t she said her wedding night?) 
Michael had got to his feet, beyond the bench, and was 
standing on the hearth, looking down into the fire . . . 
Toby was thinking hard; but could only remember the 
bridal feast without the groom . . . 

“No—Julie, frankly, I don’t.” He smiled across at her. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


292 

“I remember drinking a toast to you that night,” he found 
himself answering. 

“It was a gypsy thing, Toby,” came the quiet words 
from Michael, as he turned slowly to look at Julie. 

“Oh—yes!” Toby caught him up with swift recollection. 
“I remember now.” 

“Was it a good toast—Toby’s, Julie?” asked Michael, 
his gray eyes soberly upon her. 

“The best,” clipped in Toby lightly as he got to his feet: 
“Happy days!” and he looked squarely into his brother’s 
face. 

“Go and play, will you, Toby?” Julie’s voice was not 
too steady. 

Toby went. And having finished the wild gypsy thing 
Julie had asked for, looked up to find her there, alone. 
Michael had gone. 


Chapter Thirteen 


i 

W ITH the air of making the best of a distinctly bad 
bargain, sitting sidewise, her tongue lolling out, 
Fanny panted gently and looked of? over the 
corner of the garden to the beech tree by the potting shed. 
A squirrel had just run up the trunk. Was it worth look¬ 
ing into? Evidently not. She turned her head, bored to 
death, and looked with bland condescension at the girl 
kneeling beside her at work in the bed under the wall. 

Out of the tail of her eye Julie had seen it all. She gave 
a rueful laugh. 

“Don’t take it too hard, Fanny,” she said, without 
turning her head. “It doesn’t pay. . . . You’ll have him 
back, your Michael, some time to-morrow.” The spaniel 
brushed her long tail to and fro, her ears and eyes ex¬ 
pectant. Julie went on clearing about a clump of iris, the 
last bit of work to be done. Having finished, in silence, 


293 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


294 

she knelt a moment longer looking along the wide bed 
under the mellow brick wall . . . How satisfying it was, 
this first spring work in a garden! Earthy and fresh and 
obliterating to troubling thoughts. But afterwards— One 
came to. And that part of it was rather like the pain of 
hot ache in numbed fingers, as a child . . . Twisting 
about, she slumped down, and pulling up her knees, 
clasping them with her earthy gloves, looked off across 
the garden. . . . Old Fred came out of the potting shed 
with a hoe and made his leisurely, bandy-legged way along 
the path under the beech tree by the wall to the spot in 
the vegetable garden where he was putting in the first 
planting of peas. The afternoon sunlight slanted down 
warmly in the shelter of the wall. In the big hemlock by 
the house the wind kept up a soothing whisper that 
sounded like waves heard from far away breaking on a 
beach. Fanny got up at length and padded off to investi¬ 
gate the planting of peas . . . 

How peaceful it was in that old walled garden! Just 
the murmur of the wind up there in the hemlock . . . 
the little pat and occasional click against a stone of Fred’s 
hoe as he covered up the row of peas . . . Once a robin 
called, and was answered; and a jaunty gray catbird, 
lighting in the path quite close to the quiet girl, 
flirted and tilted his tail, eyed Julie with a comically 
cocked head, took fright and flew away. . . . His flight 
carried Julie’s eyes to a bough of the silver beech. 
Beneath the big tree shone the fresh yellow of the 
first jonquils. Tess, nosing forth from between two rows 
of raspberry bushes, trotted solemnly up, and plopping 
down close to Julie rolled over ingratiatingly with her paws 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


295 

in the air. Smiling, Julie reached out and gently ruffled 
the puppy’s soft coat. Then once more clasping her knees, 
her eyes wandered out over the garden. . . . Oh, she could 
be so happy here! But not like this . . . What had she 
done to turn the Michael she had known into a silent, 
formal man of ice—at odds with Toby and all the world, 
his sense of humor gone? It must have been her doing 
. . . What else? ... It could not go on like this,—for 
Michael’s sake, and for hers. She had done her best, in a 
mad sort of bargain. She could have stood it, perhaps, 
if— Yes, if Michael had been happy. But he was not 
happy. —He could ask her if she loved Pat, (Poor old Pat! 
She could feel for him.) and remind her of that bargain 
of theirs . . . Did he want to get out, too? Was it up to 
her, as he had almost suggested, to free him? Oh! she 
terribly needed someone to talk to— But there was no 
one, now. . . . Suddenly she thought of Sherry. Had 
he understood? that day that now seemed so long ago— 
when he had brought her that letter? Did he, in that 
extraordinarily perceiving way of his, guess how things 
were? Could she talk to him? . . . With a gasp of 
dismay she now remembered that Pip’s puppy, the one he 
had given her, was sick— She had promised to go there 
this afternoon. How could she have forgotten such a 
thing ? 

With real contrition, she got swiftly to her feet. Taking 
off her gardening gloves and rolling them into a ball, she 
crammed them into a capacious leather pocket. And two 
minutes later, having shut the door in the wall behind her, 
was making her way swiftly down the hill to the house by 
the river. 


296 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


2 

A bicycle leaned drunkenly against the apple tree at the 
corner of the house. It was Pip’s. As Julie opened the 
front door he came into the hall from the room beyond. 
His dark hair ruffled, clad in an old T-shirt and more 
ancient flannels, he stood there eating a slice of bread and 
butter. He took a regular mad-hatter bite as she watched 
him, his strong white teeth chomping on a crust. 

“I thought you’d forgotten, Julie,” he said simply. “Do 
you want tea? Ma had to go off to some stupid old 
fluff of a—oh, a grandmother’s meeting or something; an’ 
I’ve got to beat it back in a minute. . . . Decent of old 
‘Kit’ to let me off.” 

“How’s the puppy, Pip?” asked Julie, disregarding, as, 
now that it was made, did Pip, the offer of tea. 

“Pretty low, poor little beggar. Vet’s just left. Couldn’t 
seem to make out the trouble. . . . Come and see her, 
Julie.” A frown of unhappiness puckered his forehead. 
“I’m kind of afraid—” he said slowly, as he pushed open 
a door and went before her down a flagged passage— 
“that . . . We’ll see, though.” 

In the low room that served as a laundry a wood fire 
crackled and hissed in the small stove. Close to it, on a 
faded red blanket, lay the sick puppy. 

Sending a quick glance at the puppy, Pip went straight 
to the stove and took off something brewing there in a 
saucepan . . . “Milk—” he said. Julie was already on her 
knees beside the blanket. She did not need to touch the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


297 

small prone body to know that little Pippin was dead. 
But stretching out her hand she laid it tenderly on the soft 
brown head. Then she spoke, quietly, without turning: 

“Pip, old man—” she said, “we shan’t need any more 
milk ...” 

“My God!” The words broke quickly from the boy. 
And with the saucepan in his hand he was kneeling there 
beside her. He put it on the floor, and bending over laid 
a gentle hand on the puppy. Julie heard him sigh sharply. 
“What was it, d’you suppose?” he asked under his breath, 
half to himself . . . “Too many French verbs,” he sug¬ 
gested suddenly, trying to smile. He swallowed hard and 
got to his feet. Picking up the saucepan, he spoke with 
his back turned to the girl kneeling there. 

“She would ’a been a good dog, Julie ... I wanted 
awfully for you to have her.” And after a minute: “Can’t 
help it, now” . . . He put the milk down on the ironing- 
table and came back to them. Julie had got up. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Pip,” she said rather unsteadily. 

The boy leaned swiftly, and gathering up the dead puppy, 
blanket and all, into his arms, turned and went out into 
the passage. 

“I’ll get Sandy to—tuck her up for the night,” he said. 
And, being Pip, “Thanks a lot for coming, Julie.” 

She followed him out into the hall. Before she could 
help him he had somehow got the door open. Then he 
swung round and sent her a shining sort of smile. “Well 
—” he said, “you have Mike, anyway—even if you haven’t 
got your wedding present.” And turning away, he walked 
slowly off with his pitiful burden—to find old Sandy. 


298 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 

It had needed only such an incident as this to break down 
in Julie the restraint of many days. She stood for a 
moment watching the boy’s shoulders hunched protectively, 
an end of red blanket trailing out behind as he went . . . 
all blurred for the hot tears that burned her eyes. Then, 
with the one compelling thought—to get away, she turned 
quickly and walked off along the lane by the river. 

She had been standing—she did not know how long— 
leaning her shoulder against the end of the boathouse. 
The lap of the water broke now in upon her thoughts. 
From somewhere came the persistent piping of a frog. 
She lifted her head and looked out over the river. At her 
feet, in the lee of the old boathouse, the water was as still 
as a pool in the woods, and as deeply brown. Beyond 
that, where the wind faintly ruffled the surface, the re¬ 
flection of the sinking sun lay in a glittering pathway to 
the west. A log floated idly past, caught on some unseen 
snag, twisted slowly and slipped off again. A kingfisher 
chittered from a clump of alders. Julie gave a long, trem¬ 
ulous sigh and lifted her eyes from their dazed dreaming 
over the shimmering water. “Oh, God!” she said miser¬ 
ably. And hearing a rustling sound followed by a creak, 
she swung slowly to see a figure perched on the handrail 
of the jetty. His broad back presented to her, crouched 
over with his elbows resting on his knees, Toby swung a 
pair of long legs and gazed out across the river. . . . How 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


299 

long had he been there? Had he seen her? She must 
find out. 

“Toby—” she barely raised her voice. 

Without turning, only the swinging of his legs stilled, 
he began to whistle softly,—was it deliberate?—that catchy 
thing of Pip’s: “Can’t we talk it over . . . ?” In spite 
of herself Julie’s lips twitched in a smile. 

“Are you a fixture on the rail there, Toby?” she asked. 

He nodded his head then, and swinging his legs over on 
to her side of the rail was sitting facing her. 

“Kind of,” he said with a slow grin. He shaded his eyes 
from the sidelong slant of the sun and looked quizzically 
at her. “Are you?—against the wall? . . .” She laughed 
softly. How nice he was, like that! Like long ago . . . 

“Kind of,” she mimicked. 

“I was beginning to think so,” he told her ruefully— 
“My God, I’m a patient fellar when I get roused!” Then, 
quite suddenly, the whimsical look faded from his eyes. 
He slid ofi the rail, and coming up to Julie put his hands 
on her shouldres and stood looking down into her face. 
“Julie—” he said with queer soberness, “you’ve always 
been honest as the day— You’ve been crying— I—” 
He took his hands quickly from her shoulders and Julie 
caught the old dangerous sparkle in his eyes that for days 
she had forgotten— “What is it, Jude? —Not Mike . . . 
or anything?” he finished with awkward harshness, trying 
for control. 

With swift intuition Julie thrust aside all that might lead 
to an outbreak. She must keep things in hand—for Toby’s 
sake—and Michael’s. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 00 

Entirely disregarding the words of his question, she 
looked gravely up at Toby. “I’ve just left Pip carrying 
off a little puppy to tuck up for the night—the long night, 
Toby. He was so darling, and so heart-breakingly plucky 
. . . it did something to me, and I came down here ... I 
did cry, Toby. . . . Have you been here very long? 
Have I?” 

He was looking at her as though against his will. She 
saw the muscles working in his cheek. “Don’t you 
believe me, Toby?” she asked gently. 

But he only went on looking at her as if he had not 
heard a word of what she had said. “Yes—” he said 
after what seemed a long time—“I do.” 

The broken bits of a laugh were gathering together in 
his face. “I came here an hour ago to tell you—supper 
would be ready early . . . Church, or something, Hannah 
murmured to me apologetically.” 

“Toby!” Julie’s voice broke and quivered into laughter. 
The danger was over, for the moment. 


4 

She wore, that night, the soft black dress of her first 
evening at Windyhill. Toby, as he had followed her 
from the dining room, had watched with delight how some 
subtlety of cape or winglike sleeve billowed and floated 
after her. 

She sat now across the width of the hearth from him, 
in the chair that had been his mother’s. The lamp on the 
table at her elbow spilled about her a pool of golden light, 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 01 

touching the dim, lovely green of the chair, her arms and 
smooth, shining head, to a living warmth. 

At first, as they had sat there before the fire, drinking 
their coffee and smoking cigarettes, she had shown Toby 
flashes of light, contagious gaiety, ending at last with a 
smile, as she had reached for her book, saying that she 
must get on with it. And this, for awhile, with an ab¬ 
sorption that Toby envied, she had appeared to do. 

At length, as for the hundredth time he let his eyes 
stray from the unread pages of his own book to the girl 
before him, he found that she was no longer reading. Her 
book laid in her lap, her slim body turned against the chair- 
back to face the fire, her eyes were dreaming off ... so 
shut away that he might not have been there at all. . . . 
Thank God, Mike was coming back to-morrow! was his 
swift thought. It was too much to ask of any man—this! 
He was no saint,—no stronger than any other man who 
loved a woman—as he loved Julie. 

He dragged his eyes away from her and looked down at 
his open book. The words wavered across the page. —He 
could not read. Every bit of him was so terrifyingly aware 
of her. His throat ached. His heart beat thickly. His 
lips were dry . . . She was getting up. He did not 
stir or lift his eyes . . . She would be going, now, 
please God! He could go out . . . walk his mind and 
body clear and sane under the cold stars. . . . And then 
he knew that she had gone to the piano. 

“Do you mind if I play a little, Toby?” The words 
came as a shock to him. He felt as if his body were being 
dragged back from those cool, starry hills; and he was 
suddenly afraid. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


302 

“I should say not.” He had somehow forced out the 
words to sound natural. It surprised him how natural. 
With no further word on her part, simply, and without 
fuss, she had crossed the room and seated herself at the 
piano. 

Turning off the light beside him, with his face in 
shadow, Toby watched her. 

She sat for a moment perfectly still. Then, with lifted 
head, her eyes, forgetful of him and all else, focussed on 
some thought of her own, she began to play. . . . 

Toby’s book fell with a thud on to the floor, and lay 
there. A dog whimpered, dreaming . . . 

... “I should say not.” Toby’s words in answer to 
her question still sounded in Julie’s ears as she sat down 
at the piano. Poor Toby! She had dragged him back 
so suddenly from those sheep of his . . . that big book 
in which his nose had been buried . . . 

She had begun to play, a wild, rebellious thing written 
by an Austrian—she had forgotten the man’s name. But 
the spirit of revolt speaking in the lawless lilt and soar of 
its cadences at that moment met with her own mood . . . 
If only Martha Holland were there—to wring from her old 
violin the headlong, reckless sweep of its obligato! . . . 
Toby? the last faintest thought of the man beyond her, 
listening in the shadow, was drowned in the music— 
forgotten. There was no one now but Michael . . . only 
her love for him, drawing the heart from her body in 
those thrilling notes, as she played on, with head uplifted 
and wide eyes fastened on—what? 

Suddenly there came a sharply spoken word: her name. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


303 

It crashed in upon her, breaking apart the walls the 
music had builded about her. Leaving the music, itself, 
a broken thing. Toby—Toby whom she had forgotten— 
had risen up tall and somber from out the shadows. He 
was coming across the room to her; and because of the 
look upon his face she knew a curious fear. 

“Stop, Julie!” he burst out hoarsely. He stood glowering 
down upon her,—“My God! Are you deliberately trying 
to drag the very heart from me?” His voice was strange 
and tense. His eyes blazed dangerously. 

Her hands, stayed in the middle of a phrase, rested on 
the keys. In painful surprise she looked at him— 

“Toby!” she whispered. “What do you mean?” 

“This!” he said, and before she could stop him he had 
pulled her roughly to her feet—crushing her to him, his 
mouth hurting hers in hot, hard kisses. 

Powerless against his strength, horrified beyond any 
speech, she suffered it because she must. Then, as he came 
slowly to his senses and relaxed his grasp, she pushed him 
from her. 

“Toby—” her voice shook, she was trembling; but she 
looked at him, all her courage shining in her eyes. “You 
are too brave a man for this. —I am Michael’s wife, Toby.” 

And Toby, towering over her, superb in his passion— 
turned now half to anger—superb, and yet somehow 
pitiful—was trembling even as she. 

“You are not Michael’s wife,” he said brutally. “Why, 
in God’s name, do you put up with this travesty!” 

At that, quickly, blindly, she put out her hand to lay it 
on his arm. “I love him, Toby,” she said. “That is my 
reason.” . . . 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


304 

“My God!” pity, incredulous horror, darkened his eyes. 

“Yes—” she was looking past him now, and could not 
help the tears that fell, “and he—is—less than a friend, 
Toby.” 

“Christ!” The word broke in half and died upon his 
lips. Swinging sharply away, he left her, with the truth 
she had at last spoken thrown down and shattered to 
fragments at her feet. 

There came to her, in that moment—the loneliest of her 
life—swift, illuminating in its conviction, a thought that 
swept all other thoughts, all doubts, aside. Freed, she 
stood face to face with something she at last understood: 
action! 

She must hold Toby there at Windyhill until Michael got 
back. That she could only do by going away before Toby 
did. Now—this very minute. . . . She loved Michael. 
She would perform for him the only act in her power to 
restore for the two brothers the peace and happiness they 
had known before she had allowed Michael his generous 
gesture that had so disastrously mixed up their lives—his, 
and Toby’s, and hers. She, too, could be generous. She 
would go back this very night to the old house that had 
been her father’s. She would write a simple, direct letter 
to Michael—and go. . . . 


Chapter Fourteen 


i 

T OBY saw her go. Standing at the open window of 
his room next Michael’s, right over the heavy front 
door, he heard it shut and then he saw her, a dark, 
slight shape in the light of the waning moon. Her head 
up, purposeful and free—she was walking away from 
Windyhill. And he, Michael’s brother, was responsible. 
He must—for what should come after—find out where 
Julie went. Taking with him his electric torch, he made 
his way quickly along the hall and down the stairs. In 
the hall below, one of the dogs thumped a tail, drowsily, 
on the end of the settle. Toby crossed to the door and 
went out. 

The moon, shrunk to three-quarters, hung above the 
trees on the hill. Julie was going on up the lane to the 
gate. She was carrying some sort of a bag. He saw 
suddenly that a dog trotted at her heels. Tess. So, the 

305 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 °6 

comforting thought came to him, she was not going far. 
—To her own house, of course! He would risk it and take 
the short cut over the hill where the beeches grew. She 
must not know that he followed her. 

At the gate he stopped. He had lost sight of Julie. 
The moon shone down on an empty road. Then from 
the shadow of the trees beyond the farm barns there came 
the faint rasp of a shoe sole striking on stone. The old 
culvert. He waited a moment longer, that Julie might get 
well on her way up the hill; then, crossing the road, he 
followed her, walking on the grass at the lane’s edge, into 
the deeper shadow of the pines. 

Coming at length to the footpath he would take, he 
stopped to listen. A cool wind, moist and filled with the 
fragrance of pine and hemlock, blew over his face. It 
soughed faintly in the big trees overhead. He heard no 
other sound. Flashing on his electric torch, he plunged 
into the narrow path and took the rise at a sharp jog that 
soon brought him to the open glade at the top. Switching 
off his torch, he saw the beech trees for a second, their 
smooth boles and intricate fine branches a ghostly silver 
in the moonlight. Then he was running past them across 
the open and had plunged once more into the woods. 
With the light to help him he made his way swiftly down 
a twist of path through the pines till he came to the edge 
of the moonlit orchard and heard the sound of frogs in 
the pool at the turn of the brook. ... If Julie came this 
way she would have to pass the rock at the curve of the 
lane. His eyes upon the rock, he waited. A small, dark 
object moved across the corner of the orchard. It was 
Tess. And then Julie was walking steadily along the 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3°7 

lane past the rock, and the next moment had disappeared 
behind the hemlock at the corner of the house. 

His heart was pounding so, as he stood with his eyes 
fastened upon the dim shape of a window above the jog 
where the shed joined the house, that he could actually 
hear it thumping in his chest. Then the thing he waited 
for happened. There had come the faint flicker of a 
light. It steadied, and the space of window was a check¬ 
ered square of gold in the somber bulk of the house. At 
that moment a big chimney hid the moon. . . . Toby 
sank on to his heels at the foot of an apple tree. He 
would wait till Julie’s light went out. Then he would 
creep quietly into a shed . . . He could not leave her in 
that old sleeping house . . . with no one near, all the 
night through. . . . 

2 

It was late evening when Michael came walking down 
from the barn, where he had been dropped. The moon 
had not yet risen, but the sky was clear and strewn with 
stars. A fresh wind came to greet him, blowing over the 
hill from the river. He sniffed it gratefully. Lord, how 
good it was to get back to Windyhill. He had it all made 
square with himself now. He was going to talk to Julie, 
simply and truthfully. He would hold her no longer 
to this thing that was an insult to her womanhood, and 
unbearable to him. He had forgotten all about Toby. 
His mind and heart were filled with Julie . . . making 
things right again for her. ... He came to the house, 
opened the door and went in. 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


308 

Toby, with a pipe gripped in his teeth, turned slowly 
from the fire to look at him. “Hello, Mike,” he said 
queerly. “Didn’t hear you come . . 

“Where’s Julie?” Michael asked bluntly, with a strange 
stir of premonition at his heart. Paying for once no 
heed to Fanny’s joyous greeting, he brushed her aside and 
walked up to Toby. “Is anything wrong?” he asked 
. . . “Nothing’s happened—to Julie . . . ?” A suffocat¬ 
ing sensation caught the words in his throat. 

Toby was looking at him oddly . . . biting hard on that 
infernal pipe of his. “Damn it! Can’t you speak, Toby ?” 
Michael rapped out sharply, for the fear that held him. 

Still looking at him, Toby took his pipe from between 
his teeth. “Yes, Mike, I can,” he said in a quiet voice. 
“Julie’s not sick— Nothing of that sort has happened.” 
Michael saw him turn, then, slowly, and reach behind a 
picture on the mantelpiece. He brought down an en¬ 
velope and held it out. “She has gone away, Mike,” he 
said evenly, and the words sounded to Michael casual and 
cruel. 

He held on to Toby’s eyes for a moment with his own, his 
fingers crushing the letter curled in his fist. Then, with¬ 
out caring for Toby, for anything but to know what 
Julie had to tell him, he swung away and walked over 
to the lamp on the table under the window. Standing 
there, he tore the letter open. 

It seemed to Toby, waiting by the fire, as if hours 
passed before there came the rustle of crushed paper and 
he heard Michael stir. Still without moving, he stared 
on at a spot of glowing embers—waiting for Michael to 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


309 

speak . . . knowing, even, that he had come to stand 
by the end of the settle. 

“Toby!” He had never before heard Mike’s voice like 
that—filled with a curious appeal. It broke in on his own 
hot feelings of revolt, and brought Michael with it. Slowly 
he turned to face his brother. “Well—” he began, like 
a defiant boy. But all defiance dropped away at the look 
upon Michael’s face. 

. . . “She thinks she’s hurting things for us—” The gray 
eyes held a haunting question. —“Why should she think 
that, Toby?” 

“That’s not it! —Not all of it!” The words broke from 
Toby against his will: “She just can’t stand it, Mike—” 
“Stand what, Toby?” Michael was looking at him with 
dark searching eyes. 

“Why, in God’s name, did you marry her, Mike?” 
“You may well ask, Toby,” Michael was holding on 
hard to whatever emotions surged within him. 

“That’s why she can’t stand it . . .” Toby knew that 
his voice shook. His heart beat thickly, driving him on. 
“My God! Are you made of ice?” 

Michael was looking at him somberly, his face strained 
and taut. “I wish I were,” he said at last. 

“You love —Julie?” Incredulously Toby shot out the 
words. “And you don’t — \now —?” 

He saw Michael’s fingers whiten, so hard they gripped 
the back of the settle. “Know what?” The words were 
only a husky whisper. 

And then for a strange, silent moment, as the world 
seemed to draw very far off and leave them quite alone, 
Toby looked at his brother. At last words came to him: 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 10 

“You’re the luckiest man, and the greatest fool, Michael, 
that God ever let live under one skin . . . Julie loves you— 
She has always loved you.” . . . He took an impulsive 
step, and stretching out his hand gripped his brother’s 
shoulder. He would pay his debt to the full. “She is 
in her own house, beyond the hill, Michael,” he said, and 
felt how all life had gone out of him. 

“Toby—!” His hand was grasped swiftly in Michael’s 
powerful fingers, and he never afterwards forgot the 
look on Michael’s face, nor his voice, as he said, “No man 
could do a greater thing for me than you have done to¬ 
night.” Then, abruptly loosing his grasp on Toby’s fist, 
Michael turned from him, and without a word crossed the 
hall and went out. . . . Toby, standing just where he 
had left him, staring over the back of the settle, heard the 
door shut and knew that a forgotten Fanny had come to 
crouch huddled on the rug at his feet. . . . There were 
just two things more to do— To write a letter; and, 
before morning came, to have gone from Windyhill. 
—Well—that letter! He would write it now. 

He left the dog and the fire, and walking along the 
hall passed the door of the old library . . . Before the 
dining room he stopped. Light from the hall fell in a 
slanting patch across the face of that other Tobias Coch¬ 
rane . . . smiling down now as he had ever since Toby 
could remember, from the wall behind his mother’s chair. 
He might not see the old fellar for a good bit of time . . . 
Well—no use making a fuss about it! He turned quickly 
away and walked on to Michael’s den. 

Sitting at that wide familiar desk that had been his 
father’s, he stared for a moment at a little filly done in 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 3II 

bronze . . . Pat’s, he knew . . . terribly good . . . Great 
fellar, Pat— What had taken him off in such a rush? . . . 
he wished he’d seen Julie’s head finished. . . . “God—” 
he said suddenly, huskily. And then: “Perhaps I’ve 
squared things with old Mike,” he whispered. 

Straightway pulling paper toward him and taking up 
a pen, he began to write. He must keep it so that Mike 
should guess nothing . . . His pen moved rapidly over 
the paper, forming with bold strokes the words that came 
to him: 

It’s the ‘Old Spring Fret’, Mike. The Red Gods 
have begun to call—hard,—do you remember?—and 
I’m off to see the first lambs frisk. For once in a way, 
perhaps, the rolling stone has done a bit of good. 
It’s something to have rolled into and waked up the 
old Cock. 

Thanks for a lot, Mike—a roof between me and 
the weather, a fire to warm my shins, a pillow—and 
I’ll be seeing you— 

Tobias. 

He folded the sheet of paper, and putting it in an 
envelope, which he directed to Michael Cochrane, Esquire, 
stood it up against Pat’s little bronze filly. Old Cock 
would see it there sometime; and until then, what matter? 
Now—he must get his things together, and go . . . Rest¬ 
ing his chin on his fist, he leaned there for a moment 
longer, staring into the gloom beyond the pool of light on 
the desk. Until a clock, striking the hour, roused him, and 
he sighed sharply. His eyes fell upon the letter propped 
before him: with an abrupt motion he got to his feet 
and switched off the light. . . . 


3 12 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3 

i 

The spring night was cool and very still. When Michael 
came out of the woods at the top of the hill the moon 
was beginning to show over the shoulder of that farther 
hill, and beyond the orchard and old sleeping house the 
frogs were piping. He could hear the sound of the brook 
tumbling over the rock into the pool below the bridge. 
. . . How could it be true . . . what Toby had said . . . ? 
What, if it were, must not Julie have suffered at his hands. 
. . . He was going down the hill now. He thought sud¬ 
denly of the white violet he had picked and given to her. 
Sitting there on the old gray pony, her smooth hair flam¬ 
ing in a mist of golden light from the setting sun, she 
had taken the tiny flower from him and she had smiled 
at him. How game of her! What had she thought 
then? ... Was he so blind—as that?” 

He walked more slowly now, and silently, along the 
grass at the lane’s edge. It must be ten o’clock. Would 
Julie be there? He could see no light. But the moon, 
shining now on the face of the old house, showed a dim 
open space which was Julie’s window . . . Then as he 
moved forward the darkness of the hemlock came between. 
His heart was pounding against his ribs, as a man’s heart 
pounds after a hard race. The blood beat and throbbed 
in his ears . . . 

He came to the tall lilac at the end of the path . . . 
Passed it, and felt a flagstone beneath his foot. —And 
then he saw her— Wrapped in a dark cloak, her lifted 
face remote in the moonlight, she sat on the doorstone 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


3*3 

and leaned her shoulder against the house. From the 
shadow of the doorway a dog barked sharply. Julie 
turned, and her eyes were upon him. She spoke his 
name, hushed, as though from a great distance. . . . 

Then all in a minute he was standing before her. She 
had not moved . . . His heart beat so that it seemed to 
shake his body. “Julie—” he said— And suddenly, be¬ 
cause of something in her face, a truth no longer hidden, 
by her eyes, or her quivering mouth, a great strength 
came to him: he cried out in a strange, incredulous voice: 
“My God, it’s true!” And brokenly, his eyes on hers, 
“Forgive me, Julie, if you can . . 

He leaned swiftly, before she could move or speak, and 
caught her up into his arms. Stepping across the stone, 
he went in at the open door . . . “What is it, Michael?” 
she whispered once, her cheek against the roughness of 
his coat. He did not answer . . . only went on climbing 
the shallow stairs, crossed the hall above, and so came 
to the room that was hers. Holding her close, he went 
in, wading knee-deep through a flood of moonlight to a 
dim and shadowy chair. There he gently put her 
down. . . . 

“Michael—” she whispered again— “What is it, Mi¬ 
chael?” 

For a moment he stood looking down upon her face: 
mute, for the great glory of his love for her, that surged 
within him. Then slipping to his knees, he took her 
blindly into his arms, and buried his face against her 
breast . . . “Can I stay with you here . . . to-night . . . 
and tell you, Julie ... ?” 

She gave a little broken sound in her throat, and he 


MICHAEL’S WIFE 


314 

felt her slender body tremble and come to him . . . With 
a long, shivering sigh, she gathered him close. . . . 

A pale light stole over the hill . . . The stars flickered 
out and left a ghostly moon high-floating in the west . . . 
A bird stirred and sang . . . 

In deep tranquillity the old house slept beneath its bud¬ 
ding orchard . . . 

Along the lane a man came walking. Before the house 
he stopped. He lifted his arm in a mute and gallant 
gesture. Then he turned, and passing under the hem¬ 
lock crossed the narrow bridge above the brook, climbed 
the hill, stood for a moment dark against the coming 
dawn in the sky—and was gone. . . . 






































































































































